


A Taste of Home

by rabbitprint



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Baking, Food, Friendship, Love, Multi, Pining, Valentione's Day (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24238942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbitprint/pseuds/rabbitprint
Summary: Set between MSQ 5.0 and 5.2, background Alisaie/WoL and Exarch/WoL.Now that they had finished the practical tasks of getting Alisaie's baking back on course, Raha could not distract his mind away from what it was actuallyfor.Valentione's Day.
Relationships: Alisaie Leveilleur & G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch, Alisaie Leveilleur/Warrior of Light, G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 30
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

The northern kitchen had a peculiar odour about it that afternoon as Raha descended the stairs from the Amaro Launch: a burnt smell, not clean like woodsmoke, which drew him with somewhat mounting concern downwards. The Crystarium had foundations of stone, true -- but fire could touch it in equally destructive ways, eating away supports and structural reinforcements, weakening mortar and destroying tension beams until the whole thing collapsed in.

He had seen it all built up over the decades; it would not do to similarly witness it all burn down.

Thankfully, by the time Raha reached the ground level, the fumes were already beginning to clear. He ducked down the last few stairs just as a young woman stumbled out of the kitchen entryway, coughing and waving a hand desperately for fresh air. Even without her distinctive red doublet, he would have recognized her on sight; only one other person resembled her, and they were off at Eulmore putting portrait artists to shame.

"Alisaie," he remarked, startled into an automatic, pleasant nonchalance -- perfected after generations of asking various members of the Ballistics guards, _what was that explosion I heard just now,_ and watching their attempts at wide, guileless eyes -- and then hurried to assist her, opening windows and conjuring a small handful of wind aether to circulate the breeze. 

The damage was less than he'd feared. The source had been contained to a single oven, which belched a cloud of fresh smoke when Raha pried it open. Inside was a lone baking tray, decorated by blackened lumps which appeared to have fused to the metal. Nothing seemed to be actively on fire -- at least, not anymore -- and Raha mentally noted the empty water pitcher on the counter as Alisaie grabbed the nearest handtowel, flapping it at the smoke to help dissipate the smell. 

"I followed the basics of one of the recipes I found here," she explained, as Raha peered warily at the oven's maw. "But it didn't precisely match what I remembered from back home. Not that I know how to cook any great masterworks by heart," Alisaie added, spreading the towel wide and using both hands to usher the air out towards the door. "The directions said to use both natural fire in the oven, and fire-aspected _crystals_ in heat regulation, which I've seen before plenty of times -- but the baking temperatures listed were so much higher, I thought I _must_ be misreading the units of measurement. So I added more milk just in case, to keep things from drying out, and estimated the temperature difference in half. But the dough just stayed soft, so I stoked both fires up as high as I could to try and reach the right temperature swiftly -- "

At first, Raha could not keep up with the explanation, perplexed by what seemed like a crucial gap in information; then a long-dusty memory came back to him, distant enough to marvel at before he nodded.

"The aether is weaker here than on the Source," he explained gently, placing a stopper in the nearest sink and opening the valve to fill it. "A byproduct of being but a single shard, while the Source has been bolstered with power from the Calamities. 'Tis easy to forget such differences in battle, where one may utilize their own wellspring of aether to fill in the gap. Yet crystals native to the First have no such reserves, as you have discovered." Water guttered down from the faucet, drumming merrily against the metal of the basin. Raha tested the temperature with his fingers, and then adjusted the elemental clusters installed along the pipe to warm it. "The Source has eight times the aetheric strength of the First -- which has already been gravely weakened by the Flood. The formulas must have been increased appropriately by a factor of that much, I would assume?"

The reminder rejuvenated the young woman; Alisaie straightened upright with a blink, fresh calculations lining up almost visibly in her mind, balanced now by the missing element. Then she grimaced. "My apologies. Ugh, what a blastedly _simple_ thing to mistake. If Alphinaud were here, he would be positively _crowing_ in delight."

The sink was already filling nicely. Raha shook his head in sympathy, and then began to tie up his sleeves, untangling the leather straps from his fingers so they would not be soaked. "You had no reason to remember. Here, such measurements are normal. Everything is already calibrated around what the First can offer, and so nothing would seem amiss. I ruined _far_ more meals than this when I first arrived -- I forgot so many times in the early days that I thought the trip had robbed me of my wits, left behind like coins from a pocket after a poor aetheryte translocation."

In the next basin over, some guard had left their pots to soak; a froth of spongy crusts floated on the water. Raha fished the sponge from the rim, and began to scrub it against the nearest bar of soap to work up a lather. Beside him on the counter, he could see a pile of freshly-used mixing bowls, spoons, and whisks. He could not guess what Alisaie's original intentions had been just by looking at the remains of the dough. Edible goods, clearly. Charcoal: possibly not. 

"If you'd like," he offered, curiosity beginning to slowly overtake concern, "I'm quite familiar with this particular kitchen. I could help you try again?"

Already well-versed in her independence, Raha was not surprised when Alisaie hesitated. Despite her reservations, however, she was swift to join in the cleanup. Like a dancer, she moved deftly around where Raha had planted himself by the sink; swaddling her hands in towels, she checked the metal tray to make certain it had cooled enough, and then drenched it under the faucet. "I wouldn't mind the assistance, but I'm not even sure how to start making the recipe I truly wanted. It's not something I've ever prepared before, and you can see how badly I've already wasted _this_ batch." Glancing down at the blackened lumps, she prodded one with a finger, and then tentatively tried to pry at it with her nail.

Raha came to her rescue, rinsing his fingers off long enough to hook the nearest drawer open. He fished out a metal scraper, and then tugged open a lower cabinet next, revealing several composting buckets. "You'll want to save what you can. Even unlucky efforts can be safely returned to the earth as fertilizer, where the gardens can make use of it."

After stooping to haul out one of the bins, Alisaie flicked her braid back over her shoulder, testing the unfortunate baking tray with a bare finger to check its temperature. When it did not sear her, she set it down, dripping, upon the towel. "The same with what's left of the dough? There's not much left, and I don't trust how I've mixed it anymore."

"The same." Raha watched her pick up the scraper, and then inquired again, carefully, "What was it you wished to eat?"

He had begun to suspect that Alisaie was hoping he would forget the question; when a glance showed him the way the young woman's lips had pressed together, Raha knew his guess was right. She took a breath and held it, as if to steel herself from mockery. "Do you know how to prepare a rolanberry cake?"

 _Rolanberry_. Raha frowned, trying to recall the flavor she spoke of, let alone the particulars of the dish -- then memory trickled back, of sweetness lit by summer heat and a distant impression of leaves. "'Tis difficult without the rolanberries," he admitted aloud. "We have pixieberries here on the First, though the tastes of each berry are impossible to predict, even within the same fruit. No two bites are exactly the same. But it might be possible, if luck smiles upon you and leaves out all the tart ones." His curiosity only rose higher when Alisaie's expression turned crestfallen, rather than relieved. "There are alternatives, certainly. Would any of them work?"

The force of the scraper didn't slow down. Alisaie kept attacking the baked-on char so intently that Raha began to fear for the safety of the metal pan. "The reason is... less than vital," she claimed, each word coming clipped even as her sentences began to ramble, as if she was shearing off her own voice with each stroke. "I know that with how time skips and leaps around on the First, there's always the possibility that we might find it losing synchronicity with the Source, so it's impossible to _really_ predict the holidays back home. And of course, the holidays here aren't quite the same to begin with. I suppose the Flood would be the greatest event in recent history, if you wished to commemorate that," she added, a bit bleakly -- and then suddenly paused, the corner of her scraper wedged beneath a chunk of blackened dough. "My apologies. That was... unkind."

"No apologies are necessary. You speak fairly, Alisaie." Holding out his hand for the tray now that it had been sufficiently scoured -- and partially to save it from further battering -- Raha began to apply his sponge to the debris that remained. "Surviving the Flood is something we never thought to formally celebrate, simply because we never knew if we actually _would_. But now that the night has returned, I admit I am eager to see what fantastic traditions may result. Mayhap each year, the cities might stay up all night and spark candelabras to mimic the first time we glimpsed stars, and experienced the joy of rediscovering constellations long lost. But I digress," he added shrewdly, refusing to let himself be distracted. Squeezing out the sponge, he lathered it up with soap again and deliberately began another round of scrubbing. "Which holiday did you have in mind?"

She was silent for so long that he wondered if his question had been swallowed by the dishwater. Then, at last, the answer came. 

"Valentione's Day." Her voice was so tight it was nearly a squeak, choked deep in her throat. Spots of color rose in her cheeks, testament to the embarrassment that even that minor confession had evoked. "I mean, it merely seemed appropriate -- that's all. The day marks a chance to offer a gift to others in thanks for everything they've done, and who else has done more than the Warrior of Light? And with us all here, I thought -- well, it might be kind to give our Warrior a taste of home. Not that the Crystarium's fare isn't worthy," Alisaie added hastily, braving ahead through the possible insult as if the only way out was through, "and I know they can return to the Source any time they wish, but I just thought..."

She trailed off -- firming her lips in a possible attempt to keep her words from betraying her further -- and Raha did not press her this time as he mulled over the information.

 _A taste of home_. Such food would be comfort to more people than simply the Warrior; it had been over a year since Alisaie had been brought over, and she was one of the newest arrivals. Urianger was halfway towards a decade. And though all of the Scions had settled in as best they could, Raha knew painfully well how such yearnings could strike from nowhere, shadowing everything under a heavy cowl of nostalgia. 

"Many recipes from the Source have their parallels here," he said aloud, voicing the problem so that it could be studied by them both, rather than left to brew in the corners. "But it has been a long time since I thought about what delicacies might be unique to the Source itself. Here." Straightening up, he rinsed the suds from his hands and offered the sponge to Alisaie to finish the cleaning. "Let us begin with something simpler. What do you think of when you think of food from home, Alisaie? Is there a taste which brings you enjoyment no matter what place you might find yourself in, and no matter the circumstances might have brought you there?"

Alisaie accepted the sponge grimly, already occupied by the challenge -- of either identifying it or admitting it, he did not know. Finally, she gathered her courage. "Ginger cookies. I know, I _know_ , they're a _child's_ treat -- but, all the same." A grimace crossed her features, souring them with self-judgement and shame. "They were a rare delight for us, Alphinaud and I, back when we were in the Studium. The meals were so wretchedly _boring_ there, we begged or smuggled in food whenever we could. During our studies, we'd eat too many all at once, blaming each other for crumbs in the sheets and trying to pretend we still had an appetite come supper. To this day, I can't eat one without remembering what a godssend they were. I'll never grow tired of them, even if they're the only food left in the world."

Cookies. Simple enough -- but in this situation, simple was to their advantage. Raha offered her an encouraging smile, and began to tie up his sleeves more securely this time; one had begun to slip during his washing, and the edge of the fabric was dark with moisture. "Good taste labors under no restrictions of age. I've taken an indulgence in ginger cookies myself on more than one occasion. Now that you know what went awry, did you wish to make some together?"

  


* * *

  


As the kitchen continued to air, Raha laid his staff by the door where it would be safely out of the way, and turned towards one of the taller cabinets laid in the far corner of the room. Though the occasional recipe book made its way into the wrong drawer -- or into the wrong kitchen entirely, passed from hand to hand in long, wandering migrations through the Crystarium -- each collection was a miniature library all its own, painstakingly gathered by various culinarians over the years. Soups, meats, and sauces each had a shelf of their own. Baked goods had at least three.

"Let's borrow some measurements from here," he suggested, digging through the titles until he could lay hands on one of the thicker volumes. He knew its weight with particular familiarity; the leather of its cover was soft to the touch, and singed in one corner where it had lost a stand-off with a stove. Its pages were marked with the scribbles and notes of countless bakers through the years -- each with varying degrees of literacy -- and were well-stained by the occasional drippings of frostings and oils. His own hand had added to the chaos freely; it was an organizational system which regularly drove the Cabinet of Curiosities to tears.

He set the recipe book on the counter, flipping through the bookmarks and folded page corners until he came to a section on cookies, and slid it over to Alisaie for review. As she began to peruse the directions, he turned to fetch the ingredients necessary for another round. Though there was a larger, communal pantry which Alisaie had already raided -- with a chalkboard beside it where one could write down which ingredients had been used, and a jar for payment in kind -- those supplies could not always be relied on by those needing a personal store ready at hand, and Raha had his own to draw upon.

He slid back a pair of wide doors that folded obediently under his touch, lightweight enough to be wrestled open by someone who already had their hands full. The cool air of the pantry wafted out, perfumed with spices and powders. It was a dusky, familiar scent, one which had remained nearly constant throughout the years, and Raha allowed himself to draw in a deep breath for comfort before stepping inside.

Most of the shelves were marked with placards, the papers yellowed with varying ages. The one marked _Crystal Exarch_ was lower to the ground, an easy reach for Raha's height -- a kindness he tried not to be too ruffled over, knowing how many were stacked above him -- and he scanned it absently, noting an absent place where the ground ginger root should have been, and a note from Glynard apologizing for borrowing it.

"Here," he decided, and began to pull down jars. Alisaie appeared instantly at his shoulder, scooping them into her arms instead so that she could carry them back to the counter. "These are my personal supplies, so you may use them freely without worrying about keeping track. Apart from the larger kitchens which feed the Crystarium's residents, there are many smaller ones intended for the guards and other staff. Since this is the one I use, that must be why you were directed here." He lifted a half-full sack of flour, estimating it by weight. "If you run short on anything which cannot be replenished from the main stores, then simply leave a note, and I will restock it."

Alisaie hesitated as she accepted the sack, lingering by the pantry doors even as he ducked around her. "Are you sure? You already keep all of us in good supply whenever we visit. I can pull my own weight, even if Alphinaud can't."

"I'm certain." Raha gathered up a fresh set of bowls, lining them up on the table as he hunted for the basics next: natron, sugar, butter. He offered the latter to Alisaie so that he could watch her ladle the amounts out, pulling up one of the spare stools so that he could compare her measurements to those of the book. "Please, adjust this batch however you like, Alisaie. You remember what you like best."

Alisaie used the measuring cups as carefully as an alchemist, though she was less comfortable with cracking the eggs, accidentally punching holes in the shells with her thumbs and shaking yolks off her knuckles. She followed the initial measurements with a determined precision, the same kind Raha had witnessed in her twin: a focus which came from rigid Sharlayan discipline coupled with the studies of arcanima, where a mislaid line in a geometric pattern could flub any attempt at shaping aether through it. 

And yet, once the basics were in place, Alisaie promptly abandoned them. Her fingers hovered over the jars before adding more cinnamon, extra sugar, and then more salt to compensate. Her tastes were half-precise and half-instinctive, with the same free-spirited thinking that must have led her to red magicks rather than remain in the careful lines of scholarship. 

Another small wedge of butter went in the bowl. Then a few extra pinches of ginger. Then a few more, and Raha began to understand how readily Alisaie must have taken the baking times into her own hands.

"All done," she announced at last, huffing a final, frustrated breath of triumph. "What do you think?"

Hooking his fingers in the rim, Raha dragged the bowl over to his side of the table so that he could peer at the dough. Despite his trepidation, Alisaie had shown more restraint than he'd feared. Even with her additions to the recipe, nothing seemed altered enough to require a change in the basic oven temperatures. The mass of dough was darker than he expected, and softer -- the results of an extra scoop of molasses, he guessed -- but the consistency was good, and that was encouragement enough. 

"These will come out well." With a nod, he relinquished the bowl back to her and started to estimate how many baking trays they might need. "Though I am hardly a master chef. And this is only one of the recipes we have around -- it may be that another one would be closer to the ginger cookies you recall from home."

Alisaie shrugged, already sliding off her stool to place the dough in the cooler. "I'm surprised you learned at all," she admitted, her voice muffled by the door. "Is it a hobby?"

The innocence of the question quirked Raha's lips in a wry smile. "I learned out of necessity." The table was cluttered with ingredients; he began gathering the ones which needed to be placed back in temperature-controlled storage. The butter tin was cold against his hand. He switched it to his right one, where it only registered as a dim pressure. "After the Eighth Calamity, the survivors had to make do with what few edibles they could scavenge. And if you had seen the early days after the Flood, you would have thought Gatetown to be the height of plenty. Oftentimes, it seemed that starvation and the Sin Eaters were both in competition to see which side could claim more lives. Bread alone back then was quite a luxury. _That_ is the recipe," he added softly, tucking a spoon under his thumb, "which _I_ know by heart."

Alisaie had made way for him once she saw him approach with the bowl of eggs balanced in the crook of his arm; she looked back to him now, blue eyes shadowed with a frown. "I'm sorry," she offered, holding open the cooler's door so that he wasn't required to prop it against his hip. "I didn't mean to bring up painful memories."

Raha shook his head, seeking as much to ease her worries as to dismiss the old, creeping fears which still stirred each time he saw the empty back of a cupboard. "It became a little easier once we managed to establish granaries and other storage facilities." Eggs safely on their shelf, Raha slid the butter in its drawer and closed the door to keep the cold from escaping. He brushed past the young woman, but found that he could not quite meet her eyes, even knowing how it might have reassured her. Instead, the words kept marching out of his mouth, as uncontrollable as Sin Eaters to a feast. "We had to be very creative those days, to keep people fed with as little as possible. It is why, I think, I enjoy cooking with more leisure now, though some part of me still balks at the fanciful meals which others have mastered. There is a crudeness in my hand," Raha admitted, staring blindly at the streaks of foam in the sink without being able to focus on them, "where I inevitably find myself thinking only of how to make a meal stretch as far as it can, and how to trick a belly into thinking itself full, instead of growing nauseous at eating the same rice and unsalted vegetables for eight days straight."

Alisaie was silent. Outside the kitchen windows, a guard patrol changed their ranks at the turning of the bell; sunlight glimmered off their helms.

"Is that why your sandwiches often need a fork to get through them safely?" she offered at last.

It was too late for Raha to retract his confession. Alisaie had already brushed aside any options to dissemble; like striking a target in the midst of a melee, diving forward with the same unerring precision as wielding her sword, she had cut to a truth he had not thought was there to expose. 

"You have the measure of me," he tried blandly instead, attempting to force a laugh out. The attempt rose and died within a breath. "Some experiences will shape us forever, I suppose."

He could hear the scrape of a stool behind him as Alisaie must have sat back down upon it, and the creak as she braced her feet along the rungs. When she spoke again, it was with a deliberate lightness. "I _had_ wondered if there was a reason that horrible parsley kept ending up in every meal that was served in my quarters. No matter how many times you garnish my fare with it, I won't eat it. It's decoration, _not_ sustenance."

Despite how deeply memory had begun to drag at him, this criticism brought Raha back up again, echoing countless arguments throughout the generations. "It's _nutritious_ ," he defended automatically. "We've had to make entire stews out of little else over the years, more than once." Then, when Alisaie scrunched up her face in an expression of pure horror, a real laugh burst out of his throat this time, relieved in its mirth. "You remind me of Lyna. She learned how to cook her own meat as soon as she was able, and then it was _impossible_ to force vegetables down her throat. She used to pick out all her celery and tried to hide it in my own plate. 'Tis a miracle she grew as tall as she did."

He knew the potential rudeness of his observation, even as he spoke. Treating Alisaie as a child -- regardless of the years between them -- would be disrespectful in light of all which she had faced. Yet she only delivered him a good-natured roll of her eyes, swinging her feet back and forth with deliberate insolence. "I've a sudden sympathy for Lyna already," she announced. "Is she much of a chef?"

Raha shook his head, taking in a blessedly deep breath of air now that his chest no longer felt as if it was clenching shut into a ball no bigger than a walnut. "She has no love of baking, nor other meal preparations, save that of roasting and grilling meats. _That_ ," he admitted, unable to keep the wince entirely out of his face, "is an art she relishes. It -- among many other virtues -- has made her quite popular with the soldiers under her command, at least."

"Well," Alisaie said wryly, her mouth curving like a crescent. "If my ability to char remains unchanged, I suppose I could always ask her for instruction too."

The table was ready by the time the dough had finished chilling; Alisaie had spread out the flour while Raha fetched fresh trays, gathering the rest of the tools they needed. The clatter of drawers opening and closing had been a soothing metronome, cooking implements rattling against his fingers. They rolled out the dough together, Alisaie's fingers deftly drawing shapes with a knife and Raha balling up the unused dough to lay it out again, over and over as stars and people and crystals appeared in unpredictable amounts. 

The first tray filled up swiftly. Alisaie demanded for Raha watch as she adjusted the heat, insisting that he doublecheck the settings himself, and then squinting at them afterwards with the fierce resolve of a student who did not wish to be caught by the same trick question twice. He examined the oven's crystals; two of them had dimmed, but only by a few shards' worth, and none of the bracings had warped from their brief overload. They were safe enough to leave in their moorings, with a note on the chalkboard to replace them later. 

There was still time left before the baking would be done; as they waited, Alisaie immediately attacked a second batch, confident enough in their efforts that she rolled out the dough like a battlemap to conquer. Without bothering to line up her cuts for efficiency, she began to carve out a fresh round of cookies with as much variety in shapes as the first, filling up the tray with rows of diamonds and suns and spriggans, and what Raha hoped was a unicorn's head. 

For Raha's part, he thumbed through another collection of recipes, this one assembled from an assortment of loose pages that had been bound haphazardly together. The glue and stitching had already begun to decay, dissolving from humidity and heat. The letters had softened with age. He glossed over dozens of suggestions which had been passed down from decades of guards living in the Crystarium's service, and the vast amount of alcohol they had attempted to introduce into nearly every recipe that might make use of it. 

But he could not focus. Now that they had finished the practical tasks of getting Alisaie's baking back on course, Raha could not distract his mind away from what it was actually _for_.

Valentione's Day.

He barely remembered the holiday itself, save for brief mentions whenever he browsed the histories in the Umbilicus. The First had its own celebrations for love, thrown together in a hodge-podge of traditions inherited by survivors who had been forced to remake their own cultures out of commingled ashes. Each year during Aymuray Tuta, Raha wrapped multicolored ribbons around baskets of crystals meant as gratitudes for the Crystarium's artisans, and trays of cordials for the gatherers. He helped make treats for the little ones on Springblossom, round marble-frosted puffcakes which resembled the Crystarium's domes. He joined in every midwinter for the Sinner's Revel, when musicians played on every walkway and terrace around the Tower, and dancers spun in the Rotunda while other celebrants got drunk and tried to surreptitiously scale the highest points of nearby architecture. 

But those were not Source holidays. They were not Alisaie's habits for affection.

They were not the Warrior's.

It had not escaped Raha as to the significance of her choice. Friendship, companionship, family and other forms of love -- they were all celebrated together on Valentione's Day, if he remembered it correctly. Nor had Raha ignored the young woman's reactions to the Warrior of Light. Gratitude towards a friend was certainly one option, but her attention was so pronounced, it was impossible not to sense the affection that flooded out of each bright smile and alert toss of her head. He could not blame her for it, either. He felt the same way far too often around the Warrior, as if a fishhook had lodged within his heart, past the slow crystallization of his ribs, tugging insistently each time the Warrior appeared with a command that could not be denied. 

A gift to the Warrior would be more than appropriate, after everything they had done for both the First and the Source. It might be the _only_ gift that Raha would ever be able to give them. 

There might never be another chance.

Ideas flitted through Raha's mind, as wild as anxious butterflies. Even a simple gift of food encompassed an endless range of options. It wouldn't be difficult for him to prepare something as well. He could spend an entire day crafting a separate meal of his own for the Warrior, one that was not simply a plate or two dropped off at the Pendants; he could invite them to a private dinner, offering tray after tray of sweet delicacies carefully arranged like jeweled flowers that would dissolve into sugar at a touch. He could watch the delight of their expression as they discovered everything he had made on their behalf, imagining their pleasure with each step of preparation.

Offering a meal like that was akin to offering up one's hearth, one's home, inviting them inside to make your rooms their own. In dedicating all your attention towards another person, focusing only on what they might like best, you allowed them to lay their hand upon you past your skin and flesh. Thoughts of them would claim every ilm of your mind as you guessed at each of their reactions and hungers, and feared their distaste. 

And then. _Then_ to finally watch, your breath in your throat as they took the first bite, judging it -- and you as well, by extension. 

As if you were the offering being tasted from the platter, served up to the other's lips.

Yet, even as Raha felt hope begin to rise like a giddy tickle through his blood, he forced it back down. It would do no good for him to leap upon this opportunity. Time was already in dwindling supply for him; despite how the Scions insisted on finding another means of sending themselves back home, he would not allow their lives to pay the cost. 

And -- even if they all survived by some miraculous chance -- Raha remained a poor choice. By any count save that of a Viis, he was well into his older years. The Warrior of Light deserved someone who was not already worn down by a century of watching people fight and die and struggle on, across three eras and two worlds unabated. No. The Warrior deserved someone more suitable, someone who was still fresh to exploring the challenges of relationships, and who had the stamina to grow stronger together in the healing of misunderstandings. Who was still discovering who they _were_ , building compromises in themselves around the shapes of their loved ones' needs, able to travel alongside the Warrior and pierce the same grand mysteries -- who could swear the whole of their devotion and never waver. Not someone who had already walked that road for decades, giving pieces of his heart away to generations of First survivors, each one deserving to keep it. 

When all was said and done, the Warrior of Light deserved a person who would remain at their side -- back on the Source, where their own future lay waiting.

And Raha should be glad of it. He should be glad and _grateful,_ because when the time came, the Warrior of Light would return to their home forever, and all the Scions with them. One way or another, they would have to part. Like Ryne, Raha could instead take comfort in knowing the Warrior would be surrounded by those who loved and respected them; they would never be alone.

That knowledge would have to be enough.

And if -- even after having that much mercy bestowed upon him by fate -- _if_ there was still something tight twisting Raha's heart, then it was simply a flaw on his part. A poor lapse of his integrity. Like a rotten vein in a plank of wood, he would do best to dig it out and fill it with a better substance, lest it split apart at the worst possible moment.

Ultimately, Raha could not escape one basic, brutal fact: that Alisaie would be a far better match than he, because in the end, she was still part of the world where the Warrior belonged.

  


* * *

  


The chime of the oven's timer roused him out of his melancholy; cinnamon saturated the air, warming it with a comforting aroma that tugged at Raha's stomach, reminding him that he had skipped lunch again. Fetching a towel for insulation, Alisaie slid the first batch out and onto the table to cool, balanced on a rack. The first cookie separated easily from the tray when Raha tried to lever it up with a spatula, checking methodically as he went to keep it from breaking.

When the cookie did not crumble in half, he proceeded down the row, filling a plate even as Alisaie snuck one for herself and promptly fit it in her mouth.

"What do you think?" he asked, noticing the tentative way that she chewed. 

She made a noncommittal hum, continuing her methodical decapitation of the cookie. "It still doesn't taste as it ought," she answered eventually, frank as ever. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to imply that you picked the wrong recipe. It's certainly a ginger cookie, there's no mistake. But there's something about it which isn't the same, and I can't identify why."

"No, you've the right of it," Raha acknowledged, picking one of his own and taking a careful bite. It tasted normal enough -- a little sweeter and moister than average, but nothing which could be considered extraordinary, let alone nostalgic. "When we recall a favored meal in memory, we also taste the experiences which accompanied it. Sharing a meal with your loved ones, or the first dinner you have after returning home from a long voyage -- these are unique spices which cannot be reproduced from any kitchen cupboard. And thus, no two people," he concluded with a faint smile, studying the half-consumed dessert between his fingers, "have the same exact dish."

Alisaie frowned. He caught the darkening of her expression out of the corner of his eye, and shed the fancifulness of his reminiscing in favor of a far more realistic concern. "Does that trouble you?"

She dipped her head sullenly, starting to swing her foot in a kick before catching the reaction with a grimace, and shoving her boot against the table leg instead. All of her expressions were like this, Raha was beginning to realize: brazen in their forthrightness, and yet equally outraged that she was feeling that way at all. How much of it was in response to her twin, he did not know; only that Alisaie seemed constantly driven, pushing herself towards a higher standard that only she defined, and refusing anyone who deterred her from seizing it.

"Mayhap this was a foolish idea from the start." The declaration had all the ferocity of someone who was ordering themselves into submission, commanding themselves to believe whatever impossible words might next come out of their own mouths. Alisaie turned half-away in tacit denial, shoulders tense as if to brace against a winter gale."Surely the Warrior would not wish this sort of gesture from me. Next to them, I must seem like a stumbling child, racing to catch up with where they are already sitting at the table. A gift for Valentione's Day would be an imposition coming from me -- an unwanted expectation, a, a _burden_ of feeling they surely never asked for. How could such an intrusion possibly bring any joy to them?"

 _How indeed_. It was a question that belonged in Raha's own throat, in _his_ fears, filled with as many doubts as the list of logical counterpoints was full. It should never have infected Alisaie's.

He could not make a Valentione's dessert of his own now, even if he still wanted to. Not like this. Not when it would inevitably stand in competition to Alisaie's own: proof of any imagined inadequacies on her part, mocking her for thinking she could reach above her station.

His heart made his decision for him.

Raha reached out, allowing his fingers to rest on the young woman's arm for only a few moments, enough to call her attention back towards him. "Alisaie," he began gently. "The ability to care for another is not an award which is granted solely to those who prove themselves on scales of merit. Our Warrior has done so much for us, and so often alone, laboring in ways unseen by all the world. Too rarely have they had reminders that they are appreciated for all the devotion they have given us." He paused, and then forged ahead, ignoring every shudder of his own emotions in favor of bolstering her conviction instead. "Don't deny them that out of fear. Don't deny _yourself_ the chance to give it to them, when we can never be certain of how many chances we have left. Remember -- they cannot decide if a gesture is worthy of them or not, if they are never told they are loved at all."

He heard the sharpness of Alisaie's inhalation, an indraw of breath at the blow; the reminder was equally unpleasant for him as well. They had come so close to losing the Warrior this time around. If not for the opportunity that Hades had presented to them -- if Emet-Selch had simply withdrawn and bade his time, rather than expose himself as the only target which could safely neutralize the Light's amassed energies -- then there would have been no other way to pull the Warrior back from the brink.

Hades had saved them, in the end. Intentional or not, Raha would never know -- but it was a reprieve that he did not take for granted.

Yet before he could either apologize or press the matter further, Alisaie turned upon him, eyes bright with another question entirely. "What would you make, if you were to give something to the Warrior? It need not be edible," she added quickly, darting a rueful glance towards the oven. "If cost and materials were both of no concern, what would _you_ devise?"

Raha tried to hesitate, if only to suggest something simple, something easy -- but the answer was undeniable. The dream was already inside him. It had lived there for nearly a century in one form or another, waxing and waning like a moon that never vanished even when it was hiding the full of its face.

"To begin," Raha ventured slowly, trying to restrain his imagination before it could drag him too far down into pleasant fantasies. "The Warrior has seen nearly every corner of Norvrandt by now, even to the depths below -- and yet, with all of these lands, I suspect they have experienced them only as places to save, or as realms filled with hostilities. Never as a home. So much of this world has become but a byproduct of surviving the Flood, and some would consider what remains to be little more than scars marring a lost realm. If time and distance held no limitations upon us," he continued, struggling so hard to deny his excitement that he nearly gritted his teeth, "then I would take the Warrior to explore all the wonders of this land, without the burdens of their duty upon them. There, we could bring back plants from all over Norvrandt, to be kept alive in the Hortorium -- a miniature garden, where their current environments might be preserved. For now that the Light has been halted, this world will once more begin to change."

Alisaie's boot scraped against the stool's rung as she straightened up, instinctively cued by the solemnity of his words. She cocked her head, evaluating the potential warning. "But for the better, correct?"

Raha was quick to nod; he would not besmirch all they had done by attaching false lament to it now. Yet even so, he could feel the corner of his mouth turn up with bemused resignation. It was too late to steer the conversation onto some innocent, innocuous lie. Like Alisaie, the only way out was through.

"Yes. But also, consider this," he said softly, spreading his right hand across the table to give him something else to look at than the potential condemnation in Alisaie's face -- even if it had to be the sight of wood grain reflected through crystal where his flesh had once been. He had known these dilemmas would come. Ever since the faeries had descended upon Voeburt, and the Kingdom of Rainbows had stretched out in a shimmering, radiant blanket built on the bones and flesh of the fallen -- he had known. "Not only have the plants and animals adapted to eternal brightness, but the people of the First have also learned how to grow around the Light. Now, the traditions which supported us will inevitably fade. _Sinner_ will one day no longer be a badge of pride. Our songs, our celebrations -- these will lose their meaning over time. The defenses we have built against the Sin Eaters will start to rust. The Night's Blessed will find their treasured darkness returning to them again and again, made a common sight rather than a distant legend, and thus mundane instead of precious."

Blue tinted the table beneath his finger as Raha traced his hand across it, his own body filtering the light. "There are stories here, in every ilm of the land. So many tragedies -- and yet, so much proof that life, in every shape and form, _refused_ to stop fighting. With the restoration of the First, those histories will be layered over with new soil, until not even the Viis will recall it. And while being forgotten may be our greatest victory," he admitted, finally finding enough bravery to lift his head at last, and face Alisaie's judgement, "I wish there were enough time to show the Warrior more of the First and to celebrate its resilience as something beautiful, instead of horrific. To grant them fonder memories than the fears and sorrows they have experienced in such largesse here, and so little of its marvels. _That_ would be the gift I would wish for them. Memory -- and hope."

He had anticipated a frown upon the young woman's face. Instead, Raha only found Alisaie staring at him with an astonished expression, her blue eyes blinking rapidly as she digested his words.

"Oh," she finally said, the syllable short and breathless, like the exclamation of a soldier who had only just now discovered the arrow lodged in their chest. Then she made a quick, sharp jerk of her chin, as if the words had dazed her. "No," she managed. "You're right. I haven't ever looked at the First like that either. After seeing what the Flood did to this world -- to this world and its people, and in Amh Araeng in particular, I never viewed the First itself as anything other than a problem _._ " Her teeth flashed in a grimace. "Something to be _fixed_ , like a diseased wound which needed healing. Something... to be _pitied_. Not a place where people were living. Not somewhere they had _survived_." 

Silence claimed them both after she finished. In the stillness, each cooling _ping_ of metal from the oven felt as loud as a cannon shot. Then -- outside the kitchen -- the rattle of a cart went by, jugs rattling their bellies together, and Alisaie finally spoke again. 

"Your sort of gift... is much nobler, isn't it."

It was Raha's turn now to press his lips together and shake his head in refusal. "No. There is no such thing." Now that he had confessed it all out loud, it seemed a cruel choice on his part to have shared his dream: it had ended up as a standard for Alisaie to weather after all, judging herself as lesser even in her capacity for imagination. "The only pedigree a gift requires is to come from the heart, and to hold the needs and respects of the recipient sincerely in mind. In _that_ , Alisaie, you have exhibited more than enough of. We are equals in this."

Yet his words met no reply. Alisaie continued to sit, huddled in a private misery that allowed no outside interference, and Raha finally leaned forward, pushing the plate of cookies across the table to coax her appetite.

"We will find something, Alisaie," he promised. "And I will help."

His encouragement seemed to have little effect at first. Alisaie reached out a hand -- but only to fidget with one of the cookies, breaking off the point of one of the stars and then setting it down uneaten, as if to disavow the damage. "Could you not step outside, even for a short while, with use of the aetherytes? There's no risk of them being attacked by eaters anymore, or Eulmore. It should be safe."

The temptation was strong to test her suggestion. The memory of his weakness during the preparations for Mt. Gulg was even stronger. Raha shook his head, sliding off the stool and beginning to methodically stack measuring cups in the empty bowls for washing. "My tether grows shorter by the day, I fear. Nonetheless," he announced resolutely. " _Your_ quest ought not be so overshadowed. Mayhap if we cannot recreate the flavors of the Source perfectly, it might still be possible to find enough substitutions to come close. Even water which comes from Rak'tika Greatwood springs tastes quite different from wells in Amh Araeng, for instance. It might not be entirely the same, but we could experiment with ingredients from all over Norvrandt -- if you remain willing?"

Her fingers told the story of her indecision for her, drumming in erratic rhythms on the table, back and forth in a musical score of wavering determination. "All over Norvrandt," he heard her repeat -- and then she finally straightened up, squaring her shoulders with a huff. With a crisp flourish of her hands, Alisaie slapped both palms down upon the table. Flour puffed around her palms. 

"Very well," she announced, courage building back in her voice with the reckless momentum of a person ready to test if they could either leap a chasm, or survive the fall. "To Amh Araeng first, then, since I've already learned the lay of its land. Do you know if anything grows in the wild that might be worth hunting down? I've seen plants on occasion -- mostly prickly ones -- though I'm no botanist. Mayhap a sort of cooking herb or other leaf?"

"A cooking herb?" Raha paused in soaking one of the mixing bowls, the patina of butter making its rim slide treacherously between his fingers. "There's a kind of desert lavender which grows there -- we had to harvest batches a few decades back for the chirugeons and their medicines. Though," he paused as the recollection struck him, turning back from the sink and nearly losing his grip on the bowl altogether, "to be honest, whenever I think of Amh Araeng, it's always the cacti which I recall most. The round ones," he elaborated, "just like pincushions. The first time I tried to examine one, I had the bad luck of accidentally mistaking a newly-budded gigantender for a simple plant. The flower on its head had just opened, and its petals were a brilliant crimson color, turning to pale rose on the inside. It was nesting deep in the sand, and then when curiosity bade me reach towards it," he continued, lifting the bowl in demonstration even as he allowed a grin to spread across his face, "this pair of eyes slid _sloooowly_ up out of the earth to _stare_ at me, black and unyielding and full of more judgement than I've ever seen on a plant in all my lifetime. I swear, I've never felt so reprimanded by a seedkin in all my life."

As he'd hoped, the humor finally chipped away at the lingering traces of Alisaie's gloom. Laughter hiccuped out of her as she failed to keep it in check, bursting out despite any attempts at polite restraint. Once she had recovered -- with one last, muffled squeak -- she padded over to join Raha by the sink, where she caught up one of the clean handtowels and waited for him to finish rinsing the mixing bowl. "The Crystal Exarch, felled by a newborn shrub! 'Tis a good thing I never saw one turned by a Sin Eater. It could have grown wings and _flown_ for your _face_."

"I did have very poor dreams for a time afterwards," Raha admitted, handing the dripping dish to her so she could begin to dry it. "I fell over with a ridiculous yell, and the Lakelanders with me thought I was being attacked until they saw that I was being menaced by a creature no bigger than a sand shrew. I can tell the difference _now_ , of course," he defended, seeing a fresh wave of giggles bubbling up through her expression. "And yet, all the same -- every time I see one, I confess that l still have the urge to pet it."

Mischief colored Alisaie's smirk. She stacked up the next bowl as it was finished, and then briskly worked on the cups. "Best that I go after all, then, lest you be conquered by a sand flea next. Are you certain this wouldn't impose? Surely I ought not to ask the _Crystal Exarch_ to help me in the kitchens," she added archly. "Should you fall ill to exhaustion from baking, I imagine I would soon find a bevy of guards at my door, with some rather stern words."

Try as he might, Raha could not deny the possibility. "I imagine they would be angrier with me than with you," he assured, though he couldn't entirely hide his grin at the thought; most of the guards could be placated with foodstuffs, but Lyna was much harder to dissuade. 

Shaking off the spoons, he reached for the drain to allow the dirty water to run into the Crystarium's purification reservoirs, where the worst of the waste could be filtered out. The laughter had done him some good as well; already, he could feel the tighter knots beginning to unwind in his chest, the distress seeping away where it could be properly forgotten. Staying focused on Alisaie's needs would keep him from second-guessing himself -- and keep him from yearning for what he had no right to miss. 

The water guttered down the sink. Raha watched it all rinse away, and turned to offer the silverware to Alisaie, meeting her eyes without regret. "Luckily, having a few extra trays of cookies left over will delight any guards who have had little time for their indulgences of late. I'm the one who should be grateful to you, Alisaie," he said, and meant it. "Thank you for allowing me to help."

  


* * *

  


He already had a hunch of what Alisaie might bring back from Amh Araeng, owing to the long relationship of trade between Mord Souq and the Crystarium. The arid climate was not as barren as many travelers expected, but neither did it offer up its treasures gracefully. While many criticized Mord cuisine, they were still a pragmatic people who had adapted to the challenge of finding something to eat other than sand and rock. Their efforts had managed to keep numerous other races alive with them, when the Flood came.

Of course, there were still differences in what sorts of flavors -- and textures -- the Mord enjoyed, and when Alisaie hefted a fragrant, burlap sack onto the kitchen table, Raha knew his guess had been right.

"Are they proper Mord spices, or toned down for our weaker, non-Mord palates?" he asked, not daring to check himself out of a rudimentary glimmer of self-preservation. 

Alisaie gave him a sympathetic look that told the story of just how long she had lived -- and eaten -- in Amh Araeng. "I asked for the latter, but they insisted on selling me both kinds when they heard I was on an errand for the Crystarium. Claimed our tastes would all mature _someday_." Tugging open the lacings, she pulled out a handful of smaller leather pouches, all reeking and musty, wrapped with bright yellow and red cords to identify their strength. "But the price was fair and they insisted it was part of a good bargain -- and you know how the Mord get over _that_."

Raha nodded, too busy wrinkling his nose against a sneeze as he fished for the nearest label, turning it towards him as he looked for the spice's symbol. He'd read through the recipe books in Alisaie's absence, hoping to unearth some variant of sweets which might fit her requirements perfectly. In the end, he'd resorted to a familiar dessert after all. Ginger cookies from the First might not be a perfect match -- but coffee biscuits might suffice, particularly when laced with the proper flavorings.

Separating out the Mord spices properly turned out to be its own adventure, however. Raha managed to identify most by scent, but several of the satchels had lost their labels along the way, and required tasting for confirmation. A careful dab of one powder to his tongue caused him to immediately break into a coughing fit, which further forced the peppery burn all over the roof of his mouth. Alisaie fetched him water, clapping him on the back -- and then was promptly spurred to try the spice herself out of morbid curiosity, with similarly dire effects.

"The Second Serving swore me to secrecy in exchange for borrowing their recipe, so I'm afraid I have to exile you from the kitchens for the time being," he apologized, once they had both recovered enough for speech. "Give me a few bells, and I should be able to have them done before evening."

"All right," she agreed blearily, wiping a thumb against one of her eyes, which was still watering. "But leave the dishware for me to clean! I've no wish for the guards to use me as target practice -- and that's _if_ I'm lucky."

He shooed her out of the kitchen, laughing in agreement at the compromise, and then closed the door in case of curious visitors.

As confident as Raha was in the Second Serving's recipe, he was less so when it came to the task of making it taste like something from another world entirely. The Second Serving prepared food tailored to the Crystarium's tastes, which were a melange of influences from every culture that had survived the Flood. The spices to be used were from the Mord, who themselves had gladly partnered with other races, expanding their alliances whenever the opportunity presented itself.

In contrast, Limsa Lominsa and the Kobolds -- from what Raha remembered -- were at one another's throats, even to the death.

He mulled over it even as he mixed the dough. The sands of Amh Araeng were breathtaking, even without the wave of crystal which still reared over Nabaath Areng in the distance: an eternal warning of how close the desert had come to oblivion. It had been many years since he had last walked the border of the Empty in lengthy exploration, but Raha still remembered the way that the dunes hunched against the slowly-crumbling towers, and the particular grittiness of the air. The heat had been a tangible wall that had pressed against him, squeezing the moisture from his veins and baking him inside his robes and cowl. And the cold too, of course -- once the sun went down, that same heat dissipated swiftly, leaving travelers stranded and shivering even with the Light-blasted sky promising a false warmth overhead. 

The Mord had long adapted to the barren deserts of Amh Araeng; they had been eager trading partners with the Crystarium, and with the Nabaath before that. Negotiations and commerce were their specialty. Unlike the Kobolds of the Source, they had no Primal to worship, nor strict Orders which enforced their social hierarchy. Their partnerships were effortless; their harmony, a source of pride.

Kobolds were mountain-dwellers. The sea was as close as they came to sand; they lived with the onus of broken pacts perpetually overhead. Their cooking had never influenced their neighbors in Limsa Lominsa.

How could the spices of one translate to the other, Raha wondered. Was there any way to bridge them at all?

He hesitated as he pushed the parcels of spices around, lining them up next to the glass jars from his own shelf. When he finally began to spoon portions out, he did so with care, as if he was brewing a concoction of unstable brimstone and saltpeter that was liable to blow off his fingers if he looked at it the wrong way. The final combination speckled the mixing bowl like sand. The pale gold dough was spotted with darker flecks, like minerals being slowly weathered down into dust: a miniature dune, or an ocean beach caught without its tide.

Cutting the cookies too large would make eating unwieldy, but neither could they be made too small, or else they would be lost between Galdjent -- between _Roegadyn_ \-- fingers. Not too moist, or else they would crumble in the sea air. A hint more salt, with the ocean ebbing its way onto the tongue with its tides. In Limsa Lominsa, they might be served alongside both black tea and rum; he added more spice to match both, trying to remember the blurry details of the city's twists and spires. Like so much else from the Source, his firsthand memories were dim -- like distant footnotes lost among the histories which he had read and re-read during his years living in the Tower, parted by a hundred years and infinite space away. Raha had to reach for them in the places beyond language, in pure sensory impressions that came in fragments of thought: seabirds wheeling overhead, thick-tongued bells ringing out every arrival and departure, heavy canvas sails cracking in the wind.

The first batch of cookies was still cooling when Alisaie cracked the kitchen door and leaned back in. The kitchen simmered with oven heat; without waiting for an invitation, she veered directly towards the table with the hunting instincts of a raptor.

"Closer?" Raha asked, watching over his shoulder as she snatched up the first cookie. Flour coated every crevice of his hands -- both flesh and crystal -- and he was washing them off methodically in the sink, not wanting to mar the cookies with a stray thumbprint.

"Mmph," was her initial reply, too busy working through a mouthful with a hand cupped to catch the crumbs. She ignored clarifying in favor of another bite, and then another. Only when Alisaie had finished the biscuit down to nothing did she finally nod, and break into a pleased smile. "Closer."


	2. Chapter 2

She came back from Kholusia next, swift enough that Raha was caught off guard, having already immersed himself in days of researching methods for crystal infusions. As if amused by his interest, the Tower had opened fresh data libraries to his search -- perhaps pleased that Raha was following in the steps of his many-times-forebears, carrying on the proud Allagan tradition of manically fusing different forms of life together regardless of if they were animate or not. Entire floors of the Tower had unlocked their doors, luring him on like a hapless child in some cautionary tale, tantalizing him with fresh tomes like candy.   
  
Scrubbing his eyes with exhaustion, Raha had finally staggered out the Tower's front door -- only to be confronted by a very relieved guard who had been too nervous to try searching for him through its depths. With only a few minutes to spare before Alisaie's requested meeting time, he headed straight for the kitchen, arriving just as she was hefting a sack the size of a small porxie onto the table.  
  
The mercantile stamp on the side marked it as property of Tomra; he recognized it from the days of Amity, before Vauthry had broken the trade routes. Alisaie gave the bag a proud slap of her palm when she caught him looking. Its contents settled with a rustle of protest, threatening to split the burlap's weave.  
  
"This isn't quite what you'd use for baking," she warned. "But the dwarves were so insistent when I mentioned I was looking to feed the Warrior of Darkness, I couldn't refuse. They kept saying their coffee beans were the best to be found anywhere in Norvrandt, and _naturally_ superior to anything from the Goggs, and _then_ they began arguing between one another over individual family lines and how someone's cousin several years back stole half the seedlings from someone else's great-aunt. I think I might have stirred up a few blood feuds again," she admitted with a grimace, and then hefted herself gingerly onto the nearest stool, stretching out one of her arms and rotating it back and forth with a wince. "If Alphinaud asks, I had nothing to do with it."  
  
Interest whetted, Raha cracked open the bag immediately, just in case someone had traded her a batch which still needed roasting. But the strong aroma of coffee met his nose before he even had a chance to glimpse the contents, and the beans inside were as rich and dark as topsoil -- a sight blessed enough on the First, where viable farmland was worth dying for, and had often been made a subject of that exact sacrifice.   
  
A fine gift for the Warrior, indeed.  
  
"Do you want to try coffee biscuits with these again?" he asked, glancing over to where Alisaie was now flexing one of her legs experimentally, testing either an unseen injury or strain. "The flavors would be slightly different -- stronger, I believe -- but it may be worth a comparison test."  
  
Boot leather creaked as Alisaie turned her ankle. She kept it extended recklessly in the air, the heel of her foot aimed directly at the door. "No -- something new, mayhap. And I don't think I've even _had_ a cup of dwarven coffee yet, so it's hard to tell if I'd like it or not. Is it really all that special?"   
  
"I can make you some, and you can find out directly." Scooping the bag up with one arm, Raha cast about in search of a container to portion some into. "Though I habitually favor tea for my own repast. If you're interested, we could even brew this into an _espresso con panna_ , and use the spices from your trip to Amh Araeng. The flavors should mix well together -- as long as we don't use the Mord cayenne."   
  
The sack sagged over his elbow, trying to slowly ooze out of his grip. Raha hefted it closer to his chest, and then paused, inspiration striking him even as he knew how the suggestion might deviate from the intended goal. "For many years after the Flood, cream was oftentimes in short supply on this world -- along with, notably, the ability to reliably store it. As a result, _sour_ cream -- and its hardier lifespan -- has been adapted into many recipes in its stead. Would you like me to prepare the espresso in that style? It's more of a First recipe than the Source, but even so... "  
  
Alisaie's reaction was much as he expected: the young woman blinked, looking at him as if he were possessed by an Ascian, or had inadvertently ingested a loaf of meol. "Would that even be _drinkable?_ " was her first incredulous remark, and then she barked a laugh, blue eyes wide with anticipation. "All right, now I'm curious -- though I may come to regret it. Let me try a cup, if you would."  
  
The smile on Raha's face felt a match to Alisaie's own. The delight of showing off another aspect of his world warmed him like a strong draught of liquor, spreading through his chest. "The burr grinder first," he explained, setting down the beans while he scoured the cabinets for the proper tools. "And then mortar and pestle, to refine it to a fine powder. We've a boilmaster here, so there's no need to relocate to a different kitchen. Have you had supper yet?"  
  
Alisaie had resumed working through her list of hidden bumps and bruises, rolling her right shoulder next. "No," she replied absently -- and then, possibly fearing that she would be presented with an entire bowl of parsley clippings, she straightened up as if stung. "I mean, _yes!_ Yes, I'm full, I'm _completely_ stuffed, I couldn't possibly have another bite today. Thank you."  
  
But her eyes darted to the pantry, and Raha felt his mouth curving wider as he fetched a bowl of grapes, and set it discreetly on one end of the table within her reach.   
  
_Lalafells and Dwarves_ , he thought as they worked. The contrast was no less striking this time around. Unlike Mord and Kobolds, the First's residents were the ones who wore helmets to both protect and obscure their features. And Lalafells had gone about things far differently on the Source, eagerly consorting with every commerce partner imaginable, rather than choosing isolation in the mountains.   
  
Raha had partaken of Dwarven coffee before, back when bartering had been more accessible through Amity; it had been one of the first crops the Crystarium had labored towards reproducing, even faster than hops and barley. It was a hardy drink, but one often mixed with liquor and sweeteners, brewed to keep one's attention alert in the darkest tunnels. In comparison, his most vivid memory of coffee in Ul'dah had been a cup of what had been extolled to him as a Dunesfolk specialty: a thick, dense brew that more closely resembled an alchemical experiment than a beverage, served in cups smaller than a lalafell's hand. Raha had been entirely unprepared. He had downed the entire thing at once on an empty stomach, nearly retching afterwards -- not at the taste, nor from the grittiness of what he'd suspected was an entire wad of coffee grounds at the bottom, but from the intensity of a liquid that felt as if it was scouring his belly like acid.  
  
He did not know if he could mix the two styles -- not without invalidating one or the other. It seemed like either a recipe for disaster, or means of discovering a new form of ceruleum.   
  
He tried anyway, sweeping the finely-powdered grounds from one mortar into the tightly meshed strainer, handing it to Alisaie so she could finish the rest. Once the brew had finished and been topped off with the cream mixture, he set the first cup carefully in front of Alisaie, who stared at it with the wary restraint of someone who wasn't certain if they had just been served a live viper or not.   
  
Finally, she sniffed gingerly at the coffee, and then took her first sip.  
  
"The water comes from the Crystarium, which is the same vein that flows through Lakeland," Raha noted aloud as she swallowed, watching her eyebrows arch in surprise. "So it does not taste exactly the same as if it were brewed in Scree, where the water is more mineral in flavor. What do you think?"  
  
He saw her take a second mouthful and hold it on her tongue longer this time, considering. "It's better than I expected, with the sour cream," she declared. Her hand absently swirled the cup, dripping a pale line of melting cream over the rim. "It's... really quite good? But also like... mmm, like the currents of an ocean, or a river, where all _sorts_ of things are flowing through it. I keep thinking it's too sugary, then there's a spot of harshness from the espresso, and then there's the cream again. _Ugh_." She scowled, and then caught her own distaste and hastily shook her head in clarification. "It's not bad at all, I mean it! I simply can't tell if it's meant to be sweet or brisk, and I'm too busy guessing at what might come next."  
  
Raha finished adorning his own cup, setting the cream piper aside. "The unpredictability _is_ part of the appeal," he acknowledged, picking up his own cup to test it. "Part of the experience is tasting how each layer is strained through each other, so that the coffee is a little different with each sip, and no two cups are entirely alike."  
  
The boilmaster finished cooling down with a _ping,_ announcing its eagerness for more water. Alisaie nodded, contemplating the morass of her cup. "It's unexpected, and I do _like_ it, but -- it's not quite what I'm looking for. Not yet."  
  
The verdict was a setback, but not an impossible one; Raha made a mental note in his list of preferences. Complex flavors were good, but not if they weren't controlled in how they blended together. Which ruled pixieberries even further out -- with their infamously mercurial temperament, the fruits would surely be vexing to anyone expecting a straightforward meal.  
  
He crossed off several other ideas, and took another deep drink of his coffee, savoring the warring flavors. "Where did you think to visit next?"  
  
Despite her protests, Alisaie had already finished half her cup; circling a finger along the inside of the rim, she gathered a smudge of cream and lifted it to her mouth to lick it off. "It would be remiss of me not to visit the Tempest, though I cannot _imagine_ what might constitute baked goods or chocolates underwater. But I am certain the Ondo must have some manner of delicacies, though they may be closer to what the Mord prefer. Fish-eye jelly, mayhap," she added, grimacing. Then she tilted her head towards him. "Can _you_ think of anything, Exarch?"  
  
As discouraging as it was, Raha could not refute her. Desserts were as varied as the people who made them, and many were on the saltier side -- but he could think of no seafood that might mimic a lump of cocoa, let alone a cake. "I saw very little of the Tempest directly, I admit," he hazarded, trying to think back through what had been a haze of blood and agony from his injury, and even worse despair at the possibility of failure. "Rocks, mainly. Glimpses of anemones which luminesced in the darkness, causing me to mistake them for stars in my delirium. And among them, a few more delicate plants which had been stranded without the water they needed, their fronds crumpled and flat. I remember thinking how much I felt like them in that moment -- something weak and helpless on the stone floor, beached unexpectedly and unable to struggle. They must be very beautiful in their natural environment, when the water is restored. But they greatly resembled seaweed," he admitted. "Though that can be its own form of delicacy, once dried and flavored. Indeed, it's quite versatile, including being highly --"  
  
"If you're about to say _nutritious_ ," Alisaie broke in dangerously, giving him a pointed look, "I'll find enough seaweed to coat the entire floor of the Ocular. _Still wet._ "  
  
They both considered the ramifications -- and odour -- of such a threat, and then Alisaie sighed in resignation. "I suppose there's naught to be done, save go and find out," she admitted, and then extended her empty cup towards him. "But first -- is there enough coffee left for another round?"  
  


* * *

Unlike Alisaie's first two trips, Raha had no idea what to expect from Tempest. He looked up recipes that utilized fish in different forms; then, failing that, researched salt and how it might balance sugar in more complex combinations. Caramels and chocolates were both tempting solutions. The Facet's confectioners had much to say on the benefits of sea salt, particularly when it was of trustworthy quality. Eulmore's recent habit of dumping both people and waste over the sides of its balconies had left the ocean befouled beneath the city's canopy, and the lack of it as a supplier had been sorely felt by many spice cabinets.  
  
Alisaie, too, must have found it a challenge, as days went past without her return. But at last she returned with her jacket stained by a greenish ooze, fingers nicked and scraped -- and with a pouch filled with small shells, each one less than an ilm long, white as bone and nearly ridgeless to the touch.   
  
She shook out a handful on the kitchen table, sorting them by size as Raha turned a few over curiously, noting the pearly azure sheen on their innards.  
  
"The Ondo said they come from molluscs which cluster near the currents along the Flounders' Floor." Plucking one off the table, she presented it for closer examination. "The flesh itself isn't particularly appealing -- or so they claim -- but the shells are uncommonly brittle and help encourage the growth of healthy bones, so they feed them often to their young. They have to swallow them whole since their teeth aren't flat enough to grind the shells down, and I imagine it's quite a trick to keep the pieces from washing away in the ocean -- but I thought, mayhap, we might be able to do the same?"  
  
She sounded a bit hopeless by the end of her explanation, and Raha could imagine why: _healthy_ and _delicious_ had been proven to be strangers to the same bailiwick in her mind.   
  
But in this, he had a familiar solution after all, and he beckoned the pouch towards him, carefully sweeping the loose shells into a neat pile. "If we grind them down into a powder, then we may use it as an additive," he nodded, pinching one of the stray shells between his fingertips; it snapped readily in two, the fragments already crumbling without the razor-sharp edges he had feared. "Oftentimes, we've used eggshells in this fashion -- they remain a common ingredient in the Crystarium even now. A number of different flour mixtures have been developed across the First, in fact. Here, let me show you."  
  
Setting the pouch aside, Raha turned to rummage through the main cabinets, pushing aside supplies marked with various Lakeland stamps until he managed to finally retrieve a smaller bundle. Dredging it out from the back shelves, he fumbled it onto the table and then went back again to fetch a cup, hooking it out of its drawer with his fingers.  
  
"This is wheat flour in the style of the Dwarves," he explained, tugging open the sack to show off the contents. Scooping out a sample, he lifted it into the light for full examination. "The staple is precious twice over for them, since they cultivate few fields above ground. Instead, they mix it with other substances to stretch it out, such as ground mushrooms. The Crystarium learned the same technique, and when trade dwindled, we began to substitute our own from fungi grown in the Hortorium. The taste isn't affected if it's prepared in the right way. You've likely had it many times by now in various meals, without even knowing."  
  
Alisaie squinted at the flour, unconvinced. "Is it darker than normal, or is that simply my imagination?"  
  
He tilted the sample towards her, and watched her lean closer, refusing to be cowed by mere fungi. "The ratio isn't that significant," he explained, smiling at the ferocity of her scrutiny. "Else, the flour would be too thin a consistency for use. If you wanted to try it, then we could use dwarven flour as well as the Ondo shells -- in the right proportions, of course. If we prepare the shells first, I could bring a sample of the powder to the Facet's bakers and hear their thoughts on the subject. Would you be able to stay for a day or two?"  
  
With the madcap pace that Alisaie had already set, Raha expected reluctance on her part. But the young woman perked up instead, as if given a sudden reprieve she had been dreading to request. "I do have some business here that needs attending," she admitted, finally giving into curiosity and extending a cupped palm towards the bag so that Raha could shake out a portion for her to taste. "Afterwards, I thought to make for the Greatwood -- which means I've need of proper maps, lest I set foot in some region of protected territory, and get riddled by Viis arrows for my trouble." When the dwarven flour did not kill her after all, she gave a nod, and slid off her seat so that she could rinse her hand. "What do you need from me so that we can start? Should we crush them down as they are now?"  
  
Raha tipped the flour up and laced it shut, pushing it safely aside where it would not be knocked over by a stray elbow. "First, the shells will need a good washing, and then we can let the ovens sterilize and dehydrate them further," he began, already heading for the sink. "Then it will take patience to grind them down. Be careful not to breathe in the dust, just in case, and we'll see how easy they are to powder."  
  
Breads were the first ideas that came to mind as he worked, solid and familiar: staples to fill the belly and keep one going throughout the worst of days. Raha had used both eggshells and dwarven flour before; there was little chance of anything going wrong, even when mixing the principles of both together. A honey loaf might be appealing enough. Fruits dried and sown through the dough, chopped nuts for the crust. Each combination was a little different, like a stew which changed the details of its recipe with each season, celebrating the harvest even as it found new ways to adapt to scarcity.   
  
Raha ran through his options, and then shook his head, putting them all aside. Experience allowed him to balance the right proportions of yeast and eggs instinctively by now, substituting natron when yeast was not available. He had fumbled his way through more variations than he knew how to count, prepared with whatever supplies the Crystarium had available -- and that was the problem.   
  
They were all foods of the First.  
  
Ul'dah and Limsa Lominsa had already had their turn. Gridania should have been an easy wellspring of inspiration. And yet, when Raha tried to envision it -- vast forests graced by elementals, homes nestled beside streams and swathed with dense underbrush -- he found his mind painting in the colors of the Greatwood instead. Instead of rivers, he could smell the rank humidity of the swamp, the coolness of the air near Slitherbough; his skin remembered the thick, rough bark of the massive trees, and the way his hands could disappear within their whorls. The dampness of moss and mud, the leaves slowly decaying in pools of brackish water, returning to the soil. The murky stillness of the densest corners of the woods, where leaves had blocked out the endless Light overhead, offering respite from its cruel touch: precious and sacred, creating darkness where none would have otherwise existed.   
  
On another world, those places would have been considered gloomy, foul with shadows. On the First, they had been blessings.   
  
Try as he might, Raha could not imagine anything else.   
  
Together, he and Alisaie washed and dried the shells for baking, laying them out in the oven and then breaking them down through the descent of grinder and mortar. She asked him more about Kholosia as they worked; he gave her the story of a malfunctioning Talos that had been stuck on one of the ledges midway down the White Oil Falls. The accident had happened early enough after the Flood that even Eulmore had joined in, their military engineers working hard alongside the dwarves to rappel down the cliff face, after a failed attempt to bring an airship close enough had attracted too many eaters. Raha still remembered the soldiers camped about at the top of the cliff's edge, placing wagers and surreptitiously trying to fling pebbles off the side.  
  
Afterwards, once Alisaie had excused herself for the evening -- doubtless still weary from her trip, and in need of a clean change of clothes -- Raha gathered a small bowl of the bone-white powder and brought it to the Facet. The culinarians were eager to examine the shells, clustering around him curiously as they investigated the texture of the initial powder, commenting on potential toxicity and Ondo nutritional needs. They asked him about flavors, of which he had only the barest of suggestions: walnuts, honey, grains.   
  
In the end, they sent him back with a recipe labeled _Nut Bake_ and no small amount of eagerness to see the results, cheerfully sacrificing him to the cause of culinary experimentation.  
  
He took to the challenge gamely the next morning, preparing the dough and sprinkling in the recommended portions. By the time Alisaie stopped by the kitchen, he had just finished the first attempt, and was sliding it warily out of the oven.  
  
"By the Twelve," she exclaimed in delight as she spotted the pie, walnuts burgeoning out of the crust's weave. " _That_ looks magnificent. Are you sure you're not secretly a master at this?"  
  
"It may appear far better than it tastes," he warned with a laugh, setting it on the table with a towel to keep the pan from singing anything. "We should give it a little time to sit, mayhap. Else the filling may not congeal as it should."  
  
Predictably enough, Alisaie ignored the recommendation, already cutting into the dessert even as steam rolled up in gouts from the incisions. Humming to herself, she scooped it in messy clumps onto a dish, blowing air over the pie to cool it before claiming her first bite.  
  
"No, it's palatable," she declared, her verdict so ruthlessly blunt that he could not help but smile. "Rather, it's _good_. Wet, but that's better than too dry and crumbly." She scooped up another bite, puffing a breath across the top to keep from burning herself. "Urianger would be fond of this, with a little cream and cinnamon."  
  
With the pie already cracked open, there was no reason for Raha to hesitate either; he portioned out his own share and sat, digging into the dessert. It was moister than he expected, the filling oozing free of the crust into miniature landslides of caramelized walnuts, pecans and almonds, until Raha finally gave up and hauled out spoons for them both to eat with instead of forks.   
  
Alisaie made a content sound as she finished off her plate -- going right for the innards, like the habit of eating only the center of a sandwich -- and prodded a piece of leftover crust with her spoon.   
  
"This one's different than it looks as well," she began hesitantly, frowning down at the platter and the smears of liquid that remained. "I was expecting it to be nuttier, maybe more of a woodsy taste, but it's as if all the nuts were brandied first." She contemplated the empty dish, and then the pie tin, as if wondering if an arcane formula might arise from the trappings at hand. "But the _crust_ \-- that seems almost familiar. Mayhap the texture? Something about the cinnamon?"  
  
Raha was only halfway through his own portion, trying to evaluate both what he was tasting, and how Alisaie might be perceiving it. The crust was altogether too soft for his own preferences -- easily adjusted, based around the Facet's recipe -- but the results were better than he expected. There _was_ a depth in flavor, but one that couldn't have resulted from the shells alone; the powder had been nearly tasteless when he'd tried a sample, save for a mild chalkiness.  
  
"I mixed in some of the Mord spices for the filling, as well as honey from Il Mheg," he began, struggling to quantify exactly which ingredient might have the strongest influence. "Mayhap it is the latter. The Greatwood is another place that we trade honey from, and the flavors there are quite different -- owing to the lack of faerie flowers for bees to sup upon, I'd imagine. 'Tis no small feat to harvest from Rak'tika, particularly not without being poisoned." His spoon scraped along his plate as he ladeled up some of the pie's juices; Alisaie was right about the cinnamon, he decided. "You mentioned traveling there next -- it might be worth consulting with Slitherbough for their methods, or if they've other food they might recommend. They are a generous people, and may have provisions for trade if you've a wish to barter."  
  
Hunger got the better of her; Alisaie reached for the serving knife, briskly setting about the business of cutting herself another slice. "No, I do like that idea. The Greatwood is hazardous enough on its own, even when you're not trying to predict what might be toxic or not. I've no wish to fall to my death or be engulfed by a swamp while trying to pick a few berries."  
  
"A wise decision," Raha laughed. He glanced at the nearest chronometer; there was enough time left in the day before others might need the kitchen for their own cooking. Getting to his feet, he padded over to the cupboards to fetch the other tins. "There's enough filling prepared for me to make a few smaller pies. I could send them with you to the Facet to solicit their opinion -- "  
  
His hand was already on one of the cupboard doors when he saw it.   
  
Outside the windows in the distance, a flicker of bright color snagged his attention. At first, he thought it was a banner; then he saw the long jacket wrapped around the gleam of blackened armor, lined further with deepshadow mail and padding for reinforcement. Crimson and ebony flashed proudly against the sky, armaments whose power announced the identity of their bearer far better than any trumpet.  
  
The Warrior of Light.  
  
They were out on one of the terraces, speaking with a Zun who dangled a brace of reins from a clawed hand -- one of the amaro keepers, perhaps, debating the merits of one particular steed over another. Sunlight -- natural sun, pure and golden -- bathed them in a lambent warmth. The Warrior's stance was one of ease. They were scratching the back of their calf with a foot, tilting their head back and forth as they kept up an effortless flow of conversation. Raha must have spotted them on the way back from an errand, or just about to embark on a new one, planning out their next flight towards endless adventures.   
  
As he watched, they tossed their head in an easy laugh. The cheer of it was clear even from afar; the noise was barely an echo by the time it reached Raha's ears, like a sparrow's wings thrumming on the breeze. In that simple motion, there was none of the weakness that had infected the Warrior before. They were renewed, restored; they were in the fullness of their health once more, as strong as they had not been ever since slaying the first Lightwarden, and starting down a path of unimaginable agony.  
  
Raha had fallen silent without realizing it. He only realized the emptiness of his tongue when he heard the whisper of Alisaie's boots across the floor, loud enough in the stillness that each step sounded like a gong, and knew that she had seen the Warrior too.  
  
He was aware, dimly, that he should say something. It was only reasonable for him to speak. And yet -- as if the rest of his body had finally turned completely to crystal -- Raha could not react. It was a different matter entirely to plot with Alisaie in secret, convincing himself he was capable of relinquishing his own affections as easily as a plate of sweets. But now, _here_ , it was hitting him all at once, how different this act of letting go was from what he had expected: how it had to be enacted in stages, wrenching it out like a lung which his body still cried that it needed, rather than the swift, all-powerful severing that death would have brought.   
  
He had been prepared for the latter. This, instead -- this _choosing_ of it, over and over, cutting his adoration away rather than bringing it with him into the void as his last comfort -- was like consciously forcing his fingers to unclench one by one from a cliff's edge, desperately clinging to even the smallest rock no matter what his willpower demanded.  
  
All Raha could do was remind himself that it was for the best.   
  
It was _all_ for the best.   
  
He barely sensed Alisaie joining him at the window. It was as if she had been there all along from the start, a conspirator in his attempt to learn how to say _goodbye_. Her hands were folded tight on the counter in a mirror to his own. Her breathing was equally unsteady, lacerated with emotions that she could not voice, and which Raha understood completely.  
  
Together, he and Alisaie stood and watched as the Warrior wrapped up business with the amaro keeper, clapping the Zun on the shoulder -- and then finally left.   
  


* * *

After the Tempest, the Greatwood was a relief when it came to potential ingredients. Slitherbough had always been civil with the Crystarium, and though Y'shtola had made it very clear since her assumption as Master Matoya that she wished for the Night's Blessed remain independent of its influence -- a result of her mistrust of him, which was altogether wise, Raha had to admit -- they had exchanged occasional trade in the form of dyes, yeast and other provisions, all within the self-sufficiency that their community preferred.  
  
He received word of Alisaie's successful return late in the evening; thankfully, she had suggested they meet the next day, sparing him from fears that he had missed her altogether. The guards on the night shifts were still struggling with the changes to the sky, meaning that many showed up either too late or several bells too early for their duties. Sunrises remained matters of private alarm for numerous Crystarium residents; each time the darkness began to ebb, and the dawn gradually grew and grew until it set the horizon on fire, everyone was afraid that the sun might never set again.  
  
Accordingly -- despite having recently re-discovered them -- no one in the Crystarium liked mornings.  
  
The kitchen showed evidence of this in turn; several dishes had been left to soak in the sink as the guards who owned them had abandoned their breakfasts in favor of making roll call on time. The air still smelled of tomato sauce and cheese. Cracking the oven door curiously, Raha found half a portion of vegetable flatbread which had been originally tucked inside to keep warm while its owner ate, but was long-cold now.  
  
He was in the middle of wrapping it up to keep it fresh when Alisaie slid through the door, sniffing the air appreciatively with a hungry eye towards the oven.  
  
He waved her forward to the table instead, fetching out a jar of roasted almonds from his pantry shelf and setting it before her to appease her appetite -- which she promptly dove into as if starved. After a speculative moment, he brought out a plate of shredded chicken that he had been saving for dinner next, and then added a glass of juice. Then a few slices of bread, just in case. Then another.  
  
He was in the middle of debating if he should go ahead and heat up some pasta to make a proper meal for her, perhaps with some oil and vinegar for dressing, when Alisaie recalled herself long enough for words. "Here," she announced, hauling up a clay jar, her clothing spotted with the stains of her travel. One of her sleeves had been ripped; Raha reminded himself to send a weaver to her later. "Honey harvested straight from the Greatwood, though I must apologize for all the mud on it -- and on me."  
  
Mud was the least of it. Smears of what looked like moss or grass had marked her left boot all the way past her knee. Her hair had wisped out of its braid, and a few spiky clumps appeared coated with slime. "Did you have to battle the hives yourself?" Raha asked, noting a scab mottling one of her cheekbones; it looked about the right size and shallowness of a bark scrape.   
  
"No, I was fortunate enough to trade directly from Slitherbough." Alisaie's fingers rapidly peeled apart a wad of chicken, and then she promptly devoured the shreds. "The swamps got in my way. Just a bit of pest extermination, that's all. The Night's Blessed gave me some to try while I was there -- it looks _and_ tastes more like syrup than honey, but it doesn't pour the same way. Runar said they put it on biscuits."  
  
Uncorking the jar and tilting it carefully to the side, Raha waited until a rivlet of dark honey began to creep out on its lip. He caught the dribble on his finger before it could spill all over the table, and tasted the drops gingerly. The complex flavor was a familiar one -- like treacle with an undertone of smoke -- and it seeped over his tongue like a coating of velvety moss.   
  
It was a perfect draught of Rak'tika Greatwood honey. Likely Slitherbough's best batch, if Runar had been involved.   
  
Closing the honey jar securely once more, Raha nodded, and gathered up a handful of flour to sprinkle it as if in benediction over the table. "We've had a recent batch of apples from Il Mheg, so we can use them as the base. If you want to start on chopping them up, I can get the dough ready in the meantime so that it has enough time to chill."  
  
They both lingered in the kitchen rather than leave during the baking, and the smell of cinnamon and apples had slowly infused the air along with their words. Alisaie asked about story after story, and Raha found he was only too happy to answer. He was midway through a retelling of a battle at Weathering that had ended up with Lakeland's forces climbing all the way up to the Inviolate Witness, ropes slung across the broken remains of the stone bridge from Laxan Loft -- excitedly drawing the map in a puddle of flour on the table, Sin Eaters marked by occasional roasted almonds -- when the timer rang, and the pie was finally ready for dissection.  
  
Apple gel oozed out in a thick wave that coated the knife when Raha split it in half, speckled with spices and swollen with Greatwood honey. He took a bite with relish, pleased with how well dwarven flour had worked for the dough. It had been a number of years since he had experimented with anything similar, and the simmered apples weren't as soft as he would have liked, but it was a passable effort.   
  
"What do you think, Alisaie?" he asked, idly splitting the crust apart to investigate how well it had baked all the way through.  
  
Unlike him, Alisaie had shown far less enthusiasm after her initial mouthful, a perplexed frown darkening her features the longer that she chewed. "The apples," was all she said at first, bewildered. "I can taste the honey, but the apples are even sweeter somehow, as if they're made of sugar itself. And there's this strangeness to them, almost... tingling? Effervescence? I'm not sure how to describe it." She braced the tines of her fork against her plate, as if to pin it down while her attention stayed fixed upon the puzzle. "Have they begun to ferment?"   
  
Uncertainty checked Raha's appetite. "They _are_ a little stronger, having been grown in the wild," he began tentatively, trying to understand where her hesitation came from. Then he reviewed her words again, and latched on to the key. "Ah -- they're pixie apples, native to Il Mheg ever since the Flood. We managed to cultivate a Lakeland variety here in the Hortorium, but they are markedly less flavorful than wild ones -- doubtless due to the lack of faerie influence. The cider they make is very popular."  
  
"I can certainly see why." Gingerly, Alisaie picked her fork back up again, easing her way back into the dessert. "They're delicious -- I simply wasn't expecting the texture, that's all. Like I'm drinking and eating them at the same time. They're like nothing I've ever had on the Source."  
  
The lurching sense of disquiet in Raha's chest only deepened at her words. The pie beneath his fork looked innocent enough; the apples were all fresh and unblemished. But -- try as he might to look at it from Alisaie's perspective -- the dessert merely tasted rich to him, typical Crystarium fare.  
  
Not foreign. Not strange.   
  
It was disconcerting to have the difference pointed out.   
  
Raha could still remember specific meals from the Source: what they should look like, how they might smell. Some of the sensations. But decades of eating other food had overwritten more than he expected. Pixie apples were simply _apples_ to him now, the baseline against which every other variety was measured. Raha could not imagine a world without them -- and even as he tried, he could not shake the inevitable conclusion.   
  
There would be no way for him to recreate the taste of the Source if he could not even recognize it anymore.  
  
But Alisaie could tell. She still belonged to that world, in every way and form. Even now, it was beckoning back to her -- and Raha knew better than to indulge in the foolishness of jealousy, particularly when she did not deserve it.  
  
He drew in a deep breath, wrestling with the uncertainty of it all: unable to reject the pie and its familiar comfort, but equally aware of what it meant to accept it.  
  
The young woman herself had continued to dig into the dessert with relish, making her way steadily through the pastry now that her initial reservations had been cleared up. "Since I've just dined, in part, on fare from Kingdom of Rainbows, I may as well search there next," she announced around a mouthful. "And, as pleasant as it may be to wander, I suspect I could use your lead once more, lest the inhabitants make a meal out of _me_ instead. What would you recommend?"  
  
Scraping his fork along the plate to sop up some of the apple juices, Raha forced himself to focus only on the moment. The question -- as Alisaie had aptly noted -- was not what was available to harvest, but what was _safest_. Apples would have been his first choice. With their disqualification, he was forced to reconsider. "Blood tomatoes grow wild there as well, and are highly prized if you can find them -- though the pixies have learned to hunt botanists in turn. They are willing to trade for sheep's milk more readily, if you've a will to assist their flocks. But," he winced, "you may wish to avoid it."  
  
The hesitation in his voice drew Alisaie's interest; she tilted her head inquisitively, hooking her hair back behind an ear. "Why not? The sheep there are just regular sheep, aren't they?"  
  
"Yes," Raha admitted. "And their milk _is_ richer than most, making it rather popular whenever we can survive trading for it. However, I'm not entirely certain what the pixies feed their flocks sometimes... apart from leafmen."  
  
"But those are -- _oh_. Oh dear." Alisaie leaned back, her face clouding as she parsed through the implications. "Well. I suppose I _should_ avoid making our Warrior liable for cannibalism by proxy, shouldn't I?"  
  
"Mayhap," the Exarch acknowledged, thinking back to the number of cream recipes that the Facet of Nourishing had _very_ excitedly announced within the last year alone. "I can ask Feo Ul for some more honey from there, instead -- "  
  
But Alisaie was already caught up in the dilemma, using her fork to loosen chunks of apple and spread them out for examination. "What about other sorts of fruit? Are berries safe, or will they curse me to speak backwards like a broom?"  
  
With any other country, Raha might have encouraged her to explore freely. In the case of Il Mheg, simply surviving a single day was often adventure enough. He drummed his fingers on the counter, attempting to map out the safer routes which might not be preyed upon by wasps, faeries, or overgrown flowering bears. "There are fields close to Pla Enni where sugar beets naturally grow. The pixies rarely bother the plants due to their being underground, and they interest the Fuath very little as well. You'll want to take an amaro -- or we could find a chocobo, if it feels impolite to ride one so close to Wolekdorf. Sugar beets are small, but their weight can add up, and you won't be able to move quickly if you're burdened by both a bag and a spade." Still reluctant to send her into the teeth of potential disaster, he lifted a hand in warning. "It takes quite an effort to distill sugar from them, and I already have a supply here. You needn't trouble yourself with the trip -- "  
  
"Save that I _ought_ to get more sugar beets anyway, to replace what I end up using. That's the very same principle these kitchens operate upon. Correct?" Unimpressed, Alisaie merely cocked her head, as if Raha had wasted time spelling out the most basic fundamentals of the six elements. "Where's the best place to harvest these beets of yours? Else I'll just scour the meadows at random, and take whatever tries to eat me first."  
  
He surrendered to generosity as well as pragmatism: Alisaie had already proven herself to be unrelenting whenever she found a subject to pursue. "The fields I'm thinking of can be difficult to spot on foot, but there's a nearby hill covered in fingerferns which you can use to orient yourself with. I'll show it to you in the Ocular before you go. They take their name from the rumor that the dead are buried in the soil beneath, and their hands seek to burrow up from the earth, each finger extending in a thin, curling stem." Tracing the looping coils of a plant on the table, Raha allowed the circles to spiral outwards, turning the sketch into a mass of intertwined arcs -- much like the ferns themselves. "Faerie magicks like to make scrying difficult, even for the Tower, but the hillside is far enough away from their usual haunts that I've always used it as a point of navigation. Though being thwarted by illusions may be a fair exchange," he admitted, "for learning the same tricks from them."  
  
Alisaie's eyes narrowed as she studied the shapes he had drawn. "Then I shall have to beat the faeries at their own game," she decided, taking another bite of the pie. "Or, mayhap, feed Alphinaud to them as a distraction."  
  
He smiled at first at the thought, and then memory nudged the humor out of him. "Aye, speaking of which -- you _will_ need to be watchful. The fingerferns are carnivorous," he warned. "Many a creature has thought to forage among them, only to become a meal in turn. Grant them a wide berth, and if you _are_ caught, try to divert their attention with a fire crystal. They are drawn to body heat, though sometimes another temperature source can fool them."  
  
Alisaie's rate of chewing had slowed the longer Raha had continued to speak. By the end, her jaw had gone still. Eventually, she swallowed. "Lovely," she shuddered. "Is there aught else _murderously beautiful_ in Il Mheg I should be warned about?"  
  
"Oh," Raha said. "Everything."

* * *

After she was gone, the kitchen was that much quieter. Evening had overtaken the day; a few guards had come in while Raha and Alisaie had washed up, hunting out their own dinners. Much to their delight, Alisaie had shared the pie with them all, cutting wide slices overflowing with apples. The leftovers had vanished within less than a bell.  
  
But afterwards, once everyone had departed for their work shifts or beds, Raha had lingered. The dishes had long finished drying, spread out on a towel like ceramic mushrooms sprouting from the weave. It would only take a few minutes to put them away, and then he could return to the Tower for the night.   
  
Instead, he found himself moving slowly, as if immersed in deep water, all his limbs weighed down with the pressure of his surroundings. His fingers traced over the rims of the plates. He picked one up, watching the light gleam off the porcelain, shining back with the answering glitter of crystal from his own body.  
  
And then -- still deliberate with every motion, in case he might realize what he was doing and stop himself -- Raha set it down on the nearest table.  
  
A fork and spoon went beside it next, lined up like fenceposts around a garden. Raha did not reach for anything else. Circling around the table, he took a seat on the other side, and then laid both his hands flat upon the wood, palms down against the grain.  
  
He knew the oddity of the picture he must make. If any stray guard were to come inside, or look in through the windows, they might think himself short of his own wits, forgetting how to eat properly or caught in a befuddling trance.   
  
But Raha shut his eyes anyway, feeling the tide of his lungs count out the moments, and imagined it: another person sitting across from him, their weapons leaning against the counter next to his own staff. A slice of pixie apple pie still hot from the oven, squarely upon the plate. The sound that their fork would make as they ate, cutting careful bites out of the pie. The smell of the apples, faerie-sweet. He could hear the other person's laughter, their amusement at some joke that Raha might relate; he could see their smile as they marveled over the dessert, their hand reaching for the cinnamon and sprinkling on an extra draught, their fork spearing a stray apple. A smear on their lip that they wiped away with a laugh, before eagerly asking for another piece.  
  
He could see it all.   
  
In the stillness of the kitchen, Raha kept his eyes closed, and pretended that the Warrior was there with him.  
  



	3. Chapter 3

Even with a predetermined route, Il Mheg was a dangerous enough land that Raha nearly contacted Urianger anyway. Such interference would have been unspeakably rude on his part; if Alisaie had been embarrassed by sharing her intentions with Raha, she would surely be twice as mortified by having her plans exposed to one of the other Scions.   
  
But Alisaie would have certainly thought about that first, if she felt at all unsafe. Drowning was thankfully off the list, at least. None of the faeries would risk violating Titania's protection, if it was invoked -- but the Fuath considered assault to be the social equivalent of a polite _hello_ , and there might not be time for Alisaie to call out.  
  
Thankfully, when Alisaie finally arrived in the Crystarium's kitchen, it was with all her limbs intact, though the braid of her hair seemed shorter by a few ilms. Her boots were caked with mud again; there appeared to be the impressions of toothmarks left in the leather of the left one. She was lugging a bulging sack that bumped against her heels, like a sullen pet being leashed unwillingly on a walk.   
  
"Do you know what has two sides when it wakes, three sides when first heard, and yet none at all when it reaches its end?" she panted as she dropped the sack unceremoniously beside the nearest table.  
  
"No?" Raha ventured, eyeing the bulges distending the burlap, and trying to pick out the shape of what potentially might be the outlines of a body.  
  
"Neither do I. Thankfully, the pixies didn't either." With a light kick of her shoe -- which toppled the sack over, revealing the purpled skin of a beet within -- Alisaie levered herself onto the nearest stool and splayed her arms on the table in exhaustion. "The swarm I encountered had misheard that I had a twin, and were instead under the impression that I could split _myself_ in twain. When I said it was impossible, they offered to _assist_ in my physical division, so I challenged them to a riddle game while I still had tongue to speak. Since the stakes were that the loser spends eternity as a garden hedge, I refused to tell them the answer, but said they'd figure it out once they were foliage. Then I ran, very fast." Her gaze flicked away to the side, then back to him, and then off once more in an insect skitter of guilt. "Do you know if faeries can change themselves back once they've become shrubbery? If not, I may have been responsible for the demise of three pixies." Again, her eyes shifted. "And a Fuath. Unrelated."  
  
Raha could feel one of his eyebrows trying to arch its way into his scalp. "I shall inform the appropriate authorities as needed," he said dryly. "You should be immune from repercussions anyway, as a companion to both the Warrior and Urianger. I apologize that your voyage was so chaotic." Hunting through the cooler, he poured her a glass of milk and then added a dose of cinnamon for good measure, stirring it up and handing it to her as the spice spun like a whirlpool. "I am glad you made it back to us safely, Alisaie. Unbranched in more ways than one."  
  
She gave him a dark look for his effort at humor, but nudged the beets again with her foot. "These should hopefully be enough to resupply what you've used for today. Sugar goes in nearly everything that gets baked, I'd imagine. I can smell something good, but what is it?"  
  
Sheepishly, Raha scooped up the tray from where it had been cooling on the counter, along with a cutting board. Candy making was an art which he had never succeeded at. Thankfully, the culinarians of the Facet had taken up that specialty instead. Like engineers in action, they had gone to work with charts of measurements and timers, waiting for temperatures to increment by specific degrees before adding ingredients in a flurry, calculating each second as if the entire pot might explode at the slightest delay.   
  
"I thought," Raha began, straightening the tray and the cloth that covered it, as if presentation alone could make up for his poor attempt at cutting the sugary treats, "that since Il Mheg ingredients have been so distinctive before, it might be worthwhile to make a dish which relies primarily upon its sugar. It would not be any closer to replicating a meal from the Source," he admitted, hating how difficult the words were to say. "But it might help us identify how we might use it in the future."  
  
Alisaie had peeled herself off the table during the course of his speech, drifting over to investigate one of the used candy thermometers curiously, making a face as her fingers stuck to the gluey metal. But when Raha pulled away the towel to reveal the caramels, she switched her attention instantly to the candies instead, making a surprised noise of delight.   
  
She didn't wait for an invitation before snatching the nearest one up and promptly devouring it. Her jaw worked, negotiating around the dense wad. "The sugar really _is_ different, isn't it," she marveled, once she finished processing the first taste. "Like the apples. Sweeter, if that's even possible to say. Like -- like tasting a sunbeam that rolls over your tongue before you can pin it down. And instead of sticking in my teeth like regular caramels, it just melts away." She stood there for a moment, licking her lips awkwardly before he took pity on her, and refilled her milk. "I don't think I'd have understood it before, if you hadn't told me why."  
  
"It's highly prized." Pouring a second glass for himself in preparation, Raha picked up one of the caramels that had been most squashed during the cutting; the aroma of cream and sugar rolled off it in a nearly tangible haze. "All the more so because it's nearly impossible to harvest without gambling your own life in the process. But -- like all Il Mheg foods -- the sugar beets don't taste the same when grown outside of faerie lands. You should have seen how ecstatic the Facet's culinarians were," he added, finally setting the candy on his tongue, where it began to dissolve immediately. "I promised them a half a cup each as payment for preparing the caramels for us."  
  
Alisaie's fingers were already picking a second candy for herself out of the batch. "It's _too_ delicious," she laughed, popping it into her mouth. "I swear, you could ransom a member of the Syndicate with just a bag. There's a lightness to it that's so smooth, and I love how it evaporates so quickly that every piece tastes fresh again. You're right, it's not like normal sugar from the Source at all. Prepared like this, I can see why."  
  
_Normal sugar._ It was an innocent word choice, Raha knew. Alisaie had not meant anything intentional by it.  
  
He held on to the distinction anyway, making careful notes of her preferences even as he rinsed down his candy with a draught of milk and pretended to consider a second. Finally, he could not keep from breaking the silence, and braced himself for the last steps to come.  
  
"You've traveled everywhere else by now," he began, working to keep his tone deliberately light, and his interest centered upon the plate of caramels. "Only Lakeland remains -- and that is near enough that it should be relatively safe, particularly if you follow the roads through Radisca's Round to the Ostall Imperative. Normally I would suggest seeing what Holminster Switch has in harvest, but they will have little spare after the Lightwarden's attack."  
  
Sucking sugar off her thumb, Alisaie made a one-shouldered shrug. "I know that Sullen likely has fish to offer," she mused, wrinkling her nose at the familiarity of the dilemma. "And as for the other villages, I'd rather not pester them and their supplies. Is there aught I might find on my own in the woods?"  
  
It was not from lack of familiarity that caused Raha to pause this time. Nothing he had prepared so far had been enough to capture the flavors of the Source exactly -- but there were aspects of each that Alisaie had favored and rejected. What _he_ could not remember, she could.  
  
Even if Raha set aside his own attempts to mimic how the Source might taste, that did not mean he lacked a guide.  
  
He drummed his fingers lightly on the table, a staccato gallop that turned into a sweep of his hand, idly walking along the wood as he thought.   
  
Mord spices, coffee beans, mussel shells.   
  
Sugar. Honey.  
  
"We _are_ able to harvest certain fruits from Lakeland easily," he ventured slowly, a few ideas taking shape in his mind. "Harcots grow wild at Hare Among Giants, and peaches too. Take one of the more experienced amaro again, so that you may ride at your leisure. If you follow the roads west from the Accensor Gate, you should be able to spot what you can in the Forest of the Lost Shepard before making the full loop north and east again, passing Hare Among Giants before returning home through Weathering."  
  
He caught his slip too late -- the Crystarium was certainly _not_ Alisaie's home, not by choice -- but she was gracious enough not to remark on it. "Picking fruit is something I can certainly do," she replied, with the easy confidence of someone who had looted an orchard more than once. "And easier than trying to remember which of the green leafy bits on the ground belong to beets, or some other vegetation that would seek to devour me. Lakeland serves as your front yard -- you must have memorized every malm of it by now." She stretched out her legs, pulling up one of her knees to her chest to extend the muscle. "What was it like, when you first saw its wilds in place of Mor Dhona?"  
  
At first, the answer that came to Raha's mind was an easy one: that Lakeland had been a fascinating place, strange and breathtaking, like a realm out of dreams. Everything had seemed impossibly new. All the foreignness that Raha had expected from stepping into a different world had been there, with trees that seemed bleached in both leaf and bark, burning slowly under an ever-present Light.   
  
It was a traveler's view, skewed towards curiosity and marvels. It was predictable.  
  
And while all of that was true, there was more -- another facet, one that Raha had never shared before, for there had never been the space for it. Not out in the Crystarium; not with the Scions when they had first arrived, suspicious and wary of their translocations. There had never been this small space of a kitchen and the ambient warmth of its stoves before, of the smells of sugars and butter melted together, of a young woman from the Source who had kept coming back, listening again and again to stories that did not have to be buried in secrets.  
  
Raha had left that memory aside long ago, for the simple reason that no one had ever asked.  
  
"It made me afraid." Honesty made his voice very quiet and very careful, tiptoeing around a dread which had changed its shape over the years, and now was no more alarming than a childhood fear of beetles in his fur. "When I stepped out of the Tower and saw rainbows in the sky, I was afraid I was too late and it was impossible to prevent the Calamity after all. All of Lakeland's colors frightened me in those days, as if their strangeness was a warning being shouted to me in every leaf. But now," he continued, slowly unearthing the words from the decades of silence he had penned them in, "now, whenever I see the trees of Lakeland, I feel relieved. Their presence is reassuring -- a sign that I am near the Crystarium, close to the Tower and all its protections. I know them, and I know that they mean safety."  
  
The explanation felt both too much and too little; he mulled over a better way to explain the sentiment, and then perked up, feeling his ears twitch in excitement. "If you wish, there are a number of vantage points where you can see a truly spectacular view of the region. Why not stop by and see them? I could tell you all about them -- I knew Radisca myself, of Radisca's Round. I could tell you the story of the battle that claimed him, and which saw the Round take his name in honor." The offer tumbled out of his mouth before he could restrain it, eagerness threatening to haul him along like an out-of-control amaro; he wrestled it to a halt with an effort. "Ah -- but I doubt you need the long-winded ramblings of an old man. My apologies, Alisaie."  
  
But Alisaie only sprawled her elbows haphazardly on the table, settling more comfortably on her stool as she hunted idly for another caramel. "Long-winded and rambling, I can deal with." Selecting one, she brandished the candy at him -- and though there was a smile on her face, it dimmed quickly. "To be perfectly honest, I've found myself rather missing Grandfather's stories of late. So, I... I don't entirely mind if you want to share yours."  
  
Underneath the bravado of her words, Raha heard the hitch as loudly as if Alisaie had shouted it. He watched as she covered the remains of her expression by sliding the caramel into her mouth, rubbing at her lips to hide them.  
  
"Very well," he agreed, reaching for the pitcher to refill her milk. "Permit me to begin with the Hour of Certain Durance and the Mortal Irons, so you can make certain to visit them when you go."

* * *

This time, as Alisaie made her final trip out, Raha knew exactly what to expect upon her return. The Crystarium had long shared its resources with the neighboring villages which nestled outside the Tower's protection, supporting one another through the leanest of times. Raha had helped with the yearly tally of Lakeland's resources for decades. He had dined upon its fruit for so long that he had known the generations of the trees themselves, tasting the way their flavors had strengthened over the years as the plants had gradually adapted to the eternal Light.  
  
But -- warned by their experiences with Il Mheg -- Raha considered the value of simplicity, and finally made his selection with only a glance at the recipe books.  
  
"Jellied harcot," he suggested when Alisaie returned, sporting fresh nicks on her fingers and grime on her jacket's collar. "It's a favorite indulgence for many of the Crystarium guards, since the ingredients are so close at hand. New variations come around every summer. It's simple to make as well, which is part of the appeal. If we get it started now, it should be ready by the afternoon."  
  
Alisaie rolled one of the apricots out of the bag, checking it for spots before pressing it to her nose, and taking a deep breath of its ripeness. "Perfect."  
  
She excused herself soon after they finished washing and chopping the fruits, busy again with her personal affairs. Raha stayed to watch the stove, occasionally stirring the pot as it burbled merrily, dissolving the fruit pulp into liquid. It was a pleasant few bells, for the timing of the day kept his vigil from being a solitary one. Noon brought many Crystarium residents by the kitchen, ducking in and out in pursuit of their own meals. Raha exchanged greetings with a pack of medics coming by from the Spagyrics, and then a pair of dancers who laughed as they swayed through, bells jingling along their hips. He promised to take care of the dishes for a blacksmith far behind schedule -- wolfing down a piece of bread faster than she could thank him -- and weathered one very pointed look from Lyna, who had finally tracked him down to see if he'd remembered to eat breakfast or not.   
  
He gave them fresh apricots as they came through and shared some of the caramels still in the pantry, contented by their delight.   
  
He had just taken one of the desserts out to check its consistency when Alisaie stopped back in, brightening up when she saw the brilliant orange gelatin in its bowl. If anything, she looked more exhausted than before -- which was alarming, since combat practice should have been only the only hazard within the Crystarium's walls, excepting the Tower itself -- but her smile was eager as she dove into the jellied harcot, spooning the first bite up with relish.  
  
By the time she was halfway through, however, she had arrived at the same conclusion that Raha had already made.   
  
"Simple, but..." was her verdict as she leaned back on her stool, sorting through attempts at tact.  
  
"But _too_ simple," he finished for her, putting to sleep the fragile bloom of hope that had tried to tentatively sprout anyway.  
  
Alisaie glanced down reluctantly and took another small bite, as if a second helping could change her mind. Her expression continued to sober; Raha could tell what the answer would be, even before she spoke again. "I don't think I had enough of these back on the Source to be able to tell if it reminds me of home in particular. I'm sorry -- you worked so hard, Exarch. These are all wonderful," she insisted. Her earring swayed as she shook her head. "Any one of these would be more than delicious enough."  
  
The forgiveness of it was almost worse than the failure. Unable to stop himself from the motion, Raha touched a hand to his own bowl, as if in apology to it as well. He had no excuse for disappointment; the likely outcome had been clear from the start.  
  
But he shoved regret aside in favor of one last try, unwilling to give up entirely yet on the progress they had made. "If you like, Alisaie, there is one more recipe that might work. I have all the ingredients I need already. Come back tomorrow afternoon. It should be ready then."  
  
They stacked a carrying tray full of spare harcot for the barracks, with one extra in case Alisaie had any cravings later. Glass cups rattled against each other, their lids turned upside-down to keep from sliding off. Raha spread a towel over the top for extra protection, and then -- with ingredients still to prepare -- he bid her a good eve, and turned back to the cabinets to begin fetching out the bowls he would need.  
  
"Exarch?"  
  
Distracted by counting the number of peaches left, Raha glanced up and saw Alisaie hovering at the door, one hand pressed against the wood. "Yes?"  
  
"I went back to the White Oil Falls in Kholusia." Her expression was unreadable, save for pure intensity; she looked to him as if every word was intended to convey more meaning than even the Echo could interpret. "And the glowing barnacles and bones that led the way down to Amaurot. I walked through the ruins of Voeburtenburg by Wolekdorf, and climbed up the trees which stretched across Slitherbough -- high enough that the ground below looked like a green ocean beneath me, and saw grass and flowers growing in new fields upon the boughs. I stood on the peninsula at the Hour of Certain Durance and saw the Thirstless Shore stretching out in an endless violet wave, towards the fishers of Sullen in the distance. Everything you told me about, I went there."  
  
The tally of it felt like an entire tapestry unrolled before him, breathtaking for its span. He hadn't expected her to keep track of it all -- let alone that she might care.   
  
"What did you think?" he asked softly, part of him suddenly afraid to hear the answer -- as if it was not the First which had been exposed, but himself. All his vulnerabilities, his sentimentality. All his ugliness for loving a world which others might rightfully wish to forget. Like a fish waiting to be gutted for dinner, his soul was laid out between them, ready for the knife to make the first incision that would spill its life across the table.   
  
Alisaie took a long moment in answering. Her gaze shifted down, searching the floor.  
  
"It was beautiful."  
  
Raha could feel his body's response before he could even recognize it in himself: in the sharp inhalation of his breath, the shiver of his lips. His eyes stung. He blinked rapidly, turning his head away to hide the raw sincerity of his relief.  
  
"I'm glad."

* * *

She arrived the next day more nervous than he expected -- and showing it visibly, all her clothing freshly washed and her hair brushed back into a neatly-plaited braid. Pausing only a few steps in, she sniffed the air curiously in search of a hint, but it was far too late; the cooking had been finished for several bells already, and Raha had even dried all the dishes.   
  
He nodded encouragingly to her as she sat down at the table across from him, a plate and fork already laid out for her arrival. On the side sat two covered platters; moisture was condensing slowly on the metal of their lids, evidence of time spent in the cooler while their contents had settled to perfection.  
  
"I don't know if this approaches what you'd imagined," he began, reminding himself that all he could do was hope. "My sense of the Source may be... weaker than it was, after all the years which have passed. But, with all the ingredients you brought back, I thought that this recipe might be enough."  
  
With that, he lifted the cover.  
  
The cheesecake beneath was not the red or pink of pixieberry, but a pale, milky peach, studded with chunks of fruit like honeyed gems within the cream. Waves of cinnamon and powdered coffee beans freckled the glistening surface, dusting the apricot glaze. He'd nearly run out of crumbs, at the end. There had been just enough for what he'd needed.  
  
"Here," he said, cutting a neat slice and setting it on her plate. "Try it."  
  
Alisaie eyed the dessert as he pushed it towards her, fumbling for the fork as an afterthought. "Not a rolanberry cheesecake," she confirmed tentatively, "but a harcot one, from Lakeland?"   
  
Raha nodded, watching the tines of her fork hover over the piece, gauging where she might make the first incision. "More than that. The cake is flavored by Amh Araeng and Kholosia both, with coffee beans and the Mord spices you liked from the biscuits. The shells from the Tempest are in the crust as well. It uses your Greatwood honey, and just enough sugar from Il Mheg to give it the lightness you spoke of with the caramels. And the sour cream -- that is from the Crystarium itself." He could not decipher her expression; his nerves kept shouting at him of his own inadequacies, drowning out her reaction beneath their shrill condemnations. "The overall flavor is much different than rolanberries, I know -- but it's milder than pixieberries, and there's no tartness. Even if it isn't quite what you were hoping for... how does it taste?"  
  
Despite the length of the ingredient list, Alisaie did not shy away from the meal, neatly shaving off a modest triangle of cheesecake before scooping it up on her fork. She chewed thoughtfully, with no indication of either enjoyment or disdain: only a deepening furrow of her brow, as she sectioned off a piece with more crust and chased it down with a third.  
  
Then she sat up straight, blinking suddenly in surprise. "Oh," she marveled at last, glancing up at him in astonishment and then back down to the cheesecake. "I had a dessert like this once, in the Rising Stones. It was different, more peaches, but _something_ about it..."  
  
Breaking off there, the young woman tapped her fork restlessly on her plate, making small _tings_ like a dancer's finger cymbals. When she spoke again, it was with the slow, halting stumbles of memory, walking backwards through her own words in search of the ones which threatened to escape her.  
  
"'Twas right after Omega had launched. We'd just been told about Lyse and were waiting for news from Baelsar's Wall. Tataru had managed to coax us all into sitting down for a meal for once. It was difficult -- we were all so _sad_ and angry and upset, and everyone was on their worst behavior. Alphinaud kept rolling his eyes in that _insufferably_ annoying manner of his. I felt as if I'd been crying for days, even when I couldn't anymore."   
  
Alisaie's hand lifted the fork once more, dragging it over her cake slice like a rake, the tines scoring thin depressions in its surface. "But _somehow_ , Tataru managed to get us all together -- the Warrior, too. Thancred wouldn't stop trying to convince them to play a round of cards with him, and Urianger tried to ignore us all so he could read one of his books under the table, and Y'shtola kept drinking a truly _astounding_ amount of wine. And for a moment..." She trailed off, sinking the fork deeper into the cake, a mirror to how memory was swallowing her own thoughts. "For a moment, even with all that was happening -- with the world constantly ending, and fresh Primals out of nowhere, and everyone, _everyone_ we had lost -- that evening felt almost as if things were all _right_ again. That we could still be gathered at a table with one another, and that alone was cause for hope."  
  
Taking a deep breath, Alisaie finally shaved off another piece of her cheesecake, and took a bite with the same care as before. Finally, she turned her attention back to Raha, shaking her head in disbelief. "It's not like Tataru's cheesecake, not entirely. But at the same time, it reminds me of the Rising Stones, with Tataru telling Thancred to take his boots off the table and Alphinaud trying to get the Urianger to look at some new carbuncle pattern, and the Warrior sneaking drinks from Y'shtola when both of them thought no one was looking. I don't know _how_ , but it tastes like I'm back there again, with everyone." With a huff of incredulous laughter, merriment spreading across her face in a smile, Alisaie looked down at her plate. "It tastes like I'm back _home_."  
  
For a moment, Raha could not breathe. It had been a gamble which he had only the slimmest hope of winning. Luck alone might have been the key ingredient -- luck, or mere coincidence from Raha's own time in Mor Dhona, where he might have even eaten from the same harvest.  
  
Victory, however, came with its own cost.   
  
"Here, then." Steeling himself, Raha pulled the other plate over and lifted its lid to reveal a second cheesecake, pristine and untouched. "As far as I am aware, the Warrior is still within the Crystarium. You should go and give this to them, while it remains fresh."  
  
Caught up in the effort of keeping his voice steady, he did not stop to heed the sudden hurricane of expressions which crossed Alisaie's face. It took all of his willpower simply to push the cheesecake over to her side of the table. The gesture felt like so much more than he was ready for, as if he was giving more than a dessert away: he was entrusting her with his hopes, his adoration, his yearning for the Warrior's happiness. Everything that he wished for the future to bring, on a world which Raha had always known he would never see again.  
  
He was so focused on keeping to his decision that, when Alisaie's answer came, all he could do was stare.  
  
"No," she said. "I won't."  
  
For a long moment, Raha could not understand the words. It was as if they had been uttered in a different language entirely, one impossible to break apart into structures of nouns and verbs. "Alisaie -- "  
  
"I traveled across the entirety of Norvrandt," she interrupted, charging ahead breathlessly as if afraid that he would -- that he _could_ \-- stop her with his very next utterance. "And with _every_ step of the way, I asked myself what would make our Warrior happiest. The answer never once changed." She glanced away suddenly, wetting her lips nervously even as she held the rest of herself ramrod straight, refusing to let herself retreat on even a physical level. "Our Warrior needs someone who is capable of being their equal. Someone wise, with experience as well as strength. Someone who has already dedicated their entire existence to them, just as they've dedicated themselves to us. Who can understand what they've already sacrificed, and what more we keep asking from them. The best gift wouldn't come from me, Exarch. It would be from _you_."  
  
Raha opened his mouth in automatic denial -- and then closed it again, unable to arrange his thoughts coherently in any order of refusal. He did not know what to address first in her claims; he could not even understand _how_ she had arrived at such a conclusion. He had already weighed his own value, as objectively as possible. Any ideas otherwise could only be mistakes.   
  
"Alisaie," he said: simply, because it was true. "I have nothing to give."  
  
She stared at him with an expression so aghast that he wondered if he had accidentally called her by her brother's name instead. They faced each other down in silence, both of them too stricken by the other to speak.  
  
Then -- with a noise of disgust -- Alisaie bolted off her seat. Her mouth was set in a scowl. She latched her fingers onto Raha's sleeve, and gave a fierce yank that nearly pulled him off his stool entirely.   
  
"Come _on_ ," she demanded, tugging at him forcefully once more, and then turned away before he had any opportunity to argue.  
  
They descended towards the Hortorium with the force of a vanguard's charge, Alisaie navigating the walkways with more alacrity than Raha expected. She never once slowed as she turned down one stairwell and then another, opening doors without bothering to ask what might be behind them -- as if she had been there dozens of times before, threading through rows of plants with implacable ease. He watched as she exchanged friendly nods with the researchers they passed, who inexplicably smiled wider when they saw him; when Raha tried to slow down, intending to ask how they knew Alisaie, she only caught his arm again with an offended huff.  
  
At last, they stopped at one of the platforms held aside for crops which needed specific environmental balances: particular temperatures, humidities, or even sealed airways, lest cross-pollination interfere with other crops growing nearby.  
  
Raha counted six containers at a glance, all of Allagan make. The control panels embedded in their bases glittered with activity, monitoring various levels of humidity and temperature within different acceptable ranges. A heavy partition cloth hung in front of their glass bulbs, and this is what Alisaie headed directly towards without bothering to pause.  
  
"Everything's still settling in," she announced, clutching a wad of the fabric in her fist. Her face was shadowed in stark lines by the backlights gleaming just above the edge of the curtain, their radiance seeping through the fabric. "Luckily enough, the scholars here are well-versed in tending to plants from all over the First, so they made little protest once I explained the goal. I'm still not happy with how it all looks -- but mayhap it's enough, as it is."  
  
With that, she yanked the cloth back.  
  
The clump of small cacti drew Raha's eye first, its container imbued with the brightness of a noonday sun, shining down upon a heap of sand and stone that seemed a portal into Amh Araeng itself. The cacti themselves nestled exactly in the center, basking underneath the heat lamps. The largest one had needles several ilms long, a perfect orb of brilliant green sunk halfway into the sand.  
  
One of its flowers was just beginning to bloom.  
  
Raha wrenched his gaze away to the next containment bulb, and then the next, dazzled by the rainbow of colors that spread out in an opulent panorama. From Kholosia, he recognized the short, weedy bushes that grew near Amity: plants from where they had gathered to watch the colossal Talos bridge the gap between earth and Mt. Gulg. A tall stalk of glittering blue flowers grew in another, its roots buried in the brackish mud of the Greatwood's swamps. A clump of plants from Lakeland was in the fourth container, forming a dense carpet across a pocket of soil; the pigmentation of their leaves were a brilliant violet that soothed Raha's heart simply to look upon.   
  
And, in the furthest one -- a bulb filled completely with water, bubbles of air circulating in an artificial current -- the fronds of a sea plant waved gently upright. Its long leaves stretched like a flag, rippling in dark emerald ribbons that were free to stretch as far as they pleased, buoyed on the current.   
  
Raha laid his left hand carefully on the nearest container, and watched as an Il Mheg fingerfern uncurled, hungrily tapping against the pane in an instinctive search for his flesh.  
  
Wasting no time, Alisaie shoved the curtain the rest of the way open, bathing the platform in brilliance. " _This_ is why I traveled across Norvrandt." Sweeping one arm wide to encompass the entire row of plants, Alisaie turned her exasperation back upon him, her eyes glittering with defiance. "You can't be apart from the Tower for very long, so I brought the First back here to _you_ instead. Here, you can tell our Warrior every single story you can remember. And if you attempt something so ridiculous as to claim that _I_ can recite the same knowledge about each land," she added brutally, "I most certainly _cannot_ , so don't even try."  
  
The ultimatum broke Raha out of his stupor; he pulled his hand away from the fingerfern's glass, but his mind was already rewinding through evidence he should have seen more clearly before. All the mud on her sleeves and boots. All the unexplained bumps and scraps she had worn with each visit, but which had been given little explanation. Raha had assumed the mishaps to stem from mere travel. For Alisaie to have also carried living plants with her -- in addition to the soil they would have needed, working with the botanists of the Hortorium to even know _what_ to bring back, or how to keep them alive -- was beyond any generosity he ever expected.  
  
_All over Norvrandt_ , he had heard her repeat back to him at the very start, a whisper under her breath.   
  
The entire time, he had mistaken why.  
  
"You didn't have to," was all he could manage. "All this effort, just for a passing dream on my part."  
  
"I _did_." Rallying her courage, Alisaie slapped her hand against the nearest containment unit, fingers splayed wide as if she intended to seize it instead of her sword. "Because otherwise, I would have remembered this world most by what it had suffered, as a prison that people needed to be saved _from_ , and that they should leave their own histories behind as quickly as possible and never consider them again. _That's_ how I would have written it down in a book for some dusty academic to read someday. And despite our progress in healing the Inn's survivors and all that's been accomplished in the Empty, a _wasteland_ would still have been what I thought of first, whenever I thought of here."   
  
Her head was held up, proud and stern; her voice did not waver, refusing to spare herself any mercy for her own admission of guilt. "But now, someday, if we are driven to the brink of desperation on the Source, and scholars begin to wonder if it might not be best to merge another world with our own after all, some weakened shard whose destruction could be mistaken as a mercy -- they _won't_ find evidence of it on the First. They will know it as a place which never stopped trying to live. It will be your tales which will defend this world when all of us are gone, Exarch." She struck the glass again with more force this time, ignoring the machinery's dulcet chime of protest. "You _do_ have something to give -- something that only you know how. And you deserve the chance as much as I. So _take it_."  
  
Like a perfect arcanist's formula, this final stroke brought Alisaie's argument full circle, sweeping away Raha's denials with it. He felt one of his ears make an instinctive, distressed flick, shivering with nervous energy as all his arguments were stripped bare, crumbling under the significance of what Alisaie had revealed.  
  
_This_ was a gift that he hadn't even known that he'd wanted to give. Not just to the Warrior, nor even to the Scions -- but to all of the First itself and its cradle of precious lives, the residents of the Crystarium and all the refugees nestled beneath its gleaming domes, the patients still being tended to in the Inn at Journey's Head. To the stubborn dwarves of Kholusia, and the gentle people of the Night's Blessed. To all the fallen Minfilias who had died as children in a war not of their choosing, and to the first Titania, who had endured the madness of being a Lightwarden for nearly a century. To Moren, and his joyful delight in literature of any form; to Glynard, and his endless warmth.  
  
To Lyna.   
  
The grace of it touched Raha like a molten knife. It lanced him deeper than even Emet-Selch's bullet had torn -- only this time, the wound was in his throat, in his eyes, in his chest, tight and stinging, leaving only the searing agony of kindness behind.   
  
"The cheesecake," he tried to protest, a defense without any real power behind it -- but Alisaie's determination had far too much momentum to be stopped.   
  
She drew in a sharp, ragged breath, her monologue already beginning to fray at the edges, words breaking their syllables early and crashing together. "As for the food," she continued briskly, chin lifted, "that's for you to gift our Warrior with as well. _All_ of it. I thought that you could... you could offer it to them while telling them all about where each ingredient had come from. I know that it would make the Warrior happy to sit there and listen," she added, and now the weakness had claimed her voice after all, her hands dropping to clench into fists at her sides, "because I was happy too. The cake is yours, Exarch. It's _yours._ "  
  
_They're yours._  
  
The full generosity of Alisaie's final gesture stuck like a stone in Raha's throat when he tried to draw in enough breath to speak. He lowered his head, trying to force his lungs to work around the outburst of emotion that paralyzed him with its intensity. The immensity of what she was offering -- that she had been offering _the entire time_ , crossing the land relentlessly with only the thought of another's happiness in mind -- felt like too much to accept without being crushed by it, humbling Raha beneath its selflessness.  
  
The temptation was there, waiting for him to grasp it. Raha could take the cake for his own. He could lay claim to every recipe they had prepared. He could overshadow Alisaie, to accept this moment as his fair due -- and leave her behind, coming up with any number of justifications as to why he should. This was his only chance. The foods had more of the First's influence than the Source's. Alisaie would not judge him.   
  
He took the time to pick his words carefully, weighing each phrase for precision, and then finally gathered himself for his reply.  
  
"I said before that the measure of nobility in a gift is the thought invested in it, not the expense or breadth it encompasses," he began softly. Shadows played on the floor around his feet, shimmers of light painting his sandals in violet and gold. "If you ever worried if your gift was deserving or not, Alisaie, then you have the answer here. The pies, the caramels -- even the coffee. The cheesecake may taste like the Source, but that is true only because _you_ were the one guiding me there. They do not belong to me," he declared, lifting his head high even as he could feel reluctance in every ilm of his body, heavy with a truth that he could not fight anymore, for there was no reason. "Because when I think of the word _home_ , I think of here. I think of apples from Il Mheg, bread baked with mushrooms from Tomra. The reasons why I learned how to cook are here on _this_ world, and I cherish them even now."  
  
He let his sentence drift for a moment, half-expecting the Void to open up around him and end his life on the spot -- but the pressure in his chest was already ebbing, easing away like a tide slowly draining into the ocean and washing him clean in the process. It hurt both more and less than he thought it would, a scouring pain that made him feel somehow better for weathering it; he could not put any word to the emotion, save for _glad_.   
  
Seawater bubbled within its glass, endlessly cycling in its containment bulb. Fingerferns leaned hungrily towards them both.  
  
Before Alisaie could rally herself in a counterattack, Raha spoke again.  
  
"If our Warrior deserves as much kindness as we can give them, then there's no reason for either of us to refrain from showing it. After all," he suggested, a little helplessly, aware of the chagrin in his voice but also of the way that his mouth was curving in rueful acceptance, "how can they know how well they are loved, if only one person is ever elected to show it?"   
  
He saw the moment when the logic of the argument snared her, in the betrayed widening of her eyes. Raha could not accept the plants without Alisaie doing the same in turn; she could not deny the food in kind, not without giving him an excuse out. Like a faerie trick, the bait had beguiled both their senses, leaving them stranded on the far side of a river that neither one had thought themselves worthy to cross.  
  
Alisaie pulled in a shaky breath and turned away, one hand touching the nearest glass to either brace herself, or pretend a distraction. The azure glow of the Greatwood flowers washed over her face and jacket, dyeing her in a pale haze that made her look as if she had stepped into the sky and come out wearing it on her skin.  
  
"But... is it really good enough?" Her voice was so faint that it was nearly lost beneath the hum of the machinery. "Can anything from me possibly be something they _want?_ "  
  
It was a question that Raha had no certain answers for. Only the Warrior, he knew, would have the final reply.   
  
He looked up to the plants instead in search of courage, examining each one. Like windows across the world, the six bulbs contained soil, sand and water -- but also thousands of moments packed within each one, names and faces who had made the First their home for decades, and who had made an equal place in Raha's heart to be carried for longer still.   
  
Alisaie had granted him this gift. The First had given him those memories in turn. But in order to even bear witness to such experiences, Unei and Doga were the ones to thank for granting Raha their Allagan blood -- and, after that, the Ironworks had been responsible, calling Raha back and providing him with the chance to save two worlds.   
  
It did not end there, either. The Warrior of Light had been the one to inspire the Ironworks when all else seemed futile, and despair had become a fixture across Eorzea. The legacy of their heroic adventures had motivated the survivors of the Eighth Umbral Calamity to take action -- leading up to the present, when Raha could return the favor by sharing stories of his own.  
  
It was impossible to tell where it all began. Each generosity had been rooted in another, sincere and heartfelt. It could not be untangled, and it did not matter if Raha did. They were all tied together in a tapestry of care and being cared for, of love and being loved, and the thousand different ways to show it.  
  
And perhaps to the Warrior of Light, who had already traveled between endless countries, and who had experienced thousands of meetings and partings -- perhaps to them, that companionship was what truly felt like home.  
  
"We cannot know unless we try, but I believe it will be," Raha said aloud quietly, as much for himself as for Alisaie. Turning away from the containment bulbs, he caught sight of her desperate glance, and knew that his own eyes held traces of the same. "Because when I look at all you have done for our Warrior, Alisaie -- and what I know you will continue to do -- it makes me happy too."  
  
Alisaie made a small hiccup of noise, halfway between a gasp and a sob. Her mouth wavered, lips pressing hard in an expression that tried to frown and smile simultaneously. But her bravery was already building itself back up, stone by resilient stone; she did not break eye contact, staring him down fiercely before giving a final, tiny nod of acknowledgement.   
  
Her sleeves rustled as she unclenched her hands and then clapped them together suddenly, angling them towards his face. "Then I suppose we'd best go find where our Warrior is lingering, before they hare off on another adventure to save the world, or an errand to deliver popotoes to the nearest waystation. Are you ready, Exarch?"  
  
Raha blinked.  
  
"Together?" he asked gingerly, taken aback not by the invitation, but by the speed of it. It was only now beginning to sink in as to what he had actually _agreed_ to; all of his previous dreams had remained safely in the realm of imagination, where every word was perfect and he had not feared misspeaking. There had been no time to prepare for the reality of actually _giving_ the Warrior anything, let alone what Raha should say while he did it. "Did you wish to give your cake to them first? So that the fare is freshest, and at its peak flavor, I mean. I can wait."  
  
As if privy to every single word that had raced through Raha's head, Alisaie smirked, arching an eyebrow in clear amusement. "Oh, no you don't," she retorted. "If you can convince me into this, _you_ can explain to the Warrior why we're celebrating a Source holiday on the First. I'll not envy you _that_ duty."  
  
The laugh that came out of Raha's mouth was breathless, thick with a bevy of feelings still clumsily stumbling over each other: amazement, delight, disbelief. Pride at Alisaie's ability to outwit him. Sympathy for the same questions they would continue to face in their mutual self-doubt, wondering how much they did or did not deserve. Worry, from wanting only the greatest happiness for their loved ones in the end. Fear, for not being enough.  
  
Gratitude, for Alisaie's stubborn strength that had lifted Raha up so that he could pull her along in turn, both of them stumbling with nearly every step -- but not alone.  
  
"All right," he agreed, smiling wider now as he held out his hand towards the walkway back, inviting her to join him. "Together."  
  



End file.
